


Seraph Squads

by LillaShiichan



Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga), 終わりのセラフ | Owari no Seraph | Seraph of the End
Genre: An AGGOXONS story, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23328901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LillaShiichan/pseuds/LillaShiichan
Summary: "My queen, you panicked! Leaving you the easiest target to shoot down!"~~~~~~~Krul Tepes along with her friends: Ferid Bathory, Lest Karr and Crowley Eusford have teamed up in the augmented virtual reality game called: 'Seraph of the end'. A challenge known as the third tournament of 'Seraph Squad' has just been announced and the four friends are eager to participate like in the two previous competitions. Join the tiny bunny queen, demon extraordinaire, shielded sniper and nuclear tornado in their quest to dodge as many of the other teams's bullets and survive in this battle royale. Ofcourse one obstacle remains, would they be able to dodge bullets of betrayal?A Sword Art Online Alternative and Owari no Seraph crossover story is told!
Relationships: Ferid Bathory/Krul Tepes, Hiiragi Kureto/Sanguu Aoi, Hyakuya Mikaela/Hyakuya Yuuichirou
Kudos: 4





	1. The start of the end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An introduction to this story’s main characters, team KFLC, which stands for: Krul Tepes, Ferid Bathory, Lest Karr and Crowley Eusford.

Peering from behind a rock, was a baby-sized bunny. Cute chubby cheeks along with ruby-coloured eyes. They had a focused expression, the muzzle of their weapon aimed at the jaw of a ginormous monster a few meters away. A sigh escaped the lips of the bunny, "Yeah I see it alright. How could I miss it though? It's right in front of me." Her gloved-hand pressed a button on the device attached to her elf-like ear. It seemed to be a communicator in order to communicate with her comrades, that were like her, hiding behind rocks. A chuckle was heard on the other line. 

"So what do you say? Krullie dear? Take it down?" It was Ferid Bathory, Demon extraordinaire that risked their health bar to face any monster he encountered in this game. Currently, he was hiding right across from the bunny, a mocking expression seen on his face as he glanced over to his comrade. The bunny sighed once more, why did she decide to even team up with him in the first place? Oh right, probably because she practically knew this man in real life. Long-time rival, in not only politics but proving the other members of their team who got the most kills in this video game. She would have been forced to join his squadron in the end. "If you get too close, you might just die." She warned him. Ferid positioned his KTR-09 on the rock. He shut an eye. 

"That's about 200 meters for you, Krullie. If I do die, I'll know you'll be there to avenge me~" he teased, occasionally peering at her for a reaction. But the bunny girl didn't flinch one bit. In fact, when he turned his head for the third time to catch a change of facial expression, she had completely left that spot. He chuckled and picked up his weapon from the solid support. He chased after the pink haired girl running ahead of him. A smile lit on his lips, she was seriously fast. She could outrun him anytime, that's one thing he admired about the pink bunny. Her ultra-speed and her strength. Each time they battled on here, she would most likely win. Not to mention, in real life as well. 

The monster was towering over the two individuals. Krul growled as she lifted her beloved weapon in the air. Trying to find her target's vitals. "I can't see anything...ugh this sucks! I bet I need to go higher!" She ambitiously groaned as all that entered her field of vision was the monster's massive leg. Ferid laughed behind her, "I can't believe you got an avatar that's just as short as you are." The silver-haired man remarked, stepping aside as the monster planned its next move: which was to crush them. The two individuals moved away. Krul almost injured herself with the front roll she overdid. "If I cant get close, i can't decrease its health by a bit." She informed not only Ferid, but her comrades that were on the lookout. 

A hum was heard from the other line. "If you could climb up its neck or at least shoot it's right eye, you'll deal an immense amount of damage." The sniper of the team, Crowley Eusford advised her, he kept his M14-EBR fixed on the moving monster's forehead. However, it took a ton of effort to follow that spot since, like said earlier, it kept moving. Crowley was an expert sniper but even he can't get perfect headshots every opponent he fights. Ferid moved away from this target and began unloading his first magazine on its sides. A gasp of amazement was heard from his line, "Wowi Crowley, how do you know all that?" He asked, innocently. It was about the fifth time he requested for his backstory. The red and black haired man exhaled before firing his shot, it landed on the monster's stomach. Completely missed. 

"I already told you. I used to work in the military before transferring to the office. It's common knowledge for a soldier." He repeated with disinterest. The man proceeded to reload, a single sniper bullet entered the M14-EBR's chamber. Ferid kept firing his bullets from a good six- or seven meters away. Red polygon fragments spilled out of the wounds traveling from the monster's sides all the way to its right leg. Krul on the other hand, dashed towards her target's left leg that was currently pressed down on the sandy flooring. She visualized a ramp through the fleshy and stretchy limb. She nodded, yes this would be her ticket up there. "Aha, don't fall now~! I'd hate to catch you~!" Ferid taunted from his spot as he watched the bunny sprint her way up.

A few footsteps were heard coming from behind the team sniper, Crowley turned his head immediately. "Hey." His dilated pupils reduced to their normal size. He didn't need to be so scared, it was only the boy with white and red hair. His comrade and the team's backup bomber, Lest Karr. The sniper fired another shot, this time it landed directly to where he wanted the bullet to pass through. A leak of red liquid spilled out of the gushing wound on the monster's forehead. Nevertheless, their enemy showed zero incapability to keep fighting. The sniper cursed under his breath. "Fellas, we have ourselves a difficult prey." He reminded with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. Reaching the top of her target's leg, Krul growled. She was still not high enough. 

"Hey Lest, could you help out for a sec?" She inquired quickly, trying her best not to fall off. It would completely foil her incoming plan if she did. However, "I'm hurt! Krullie dear! You ask Lest Karr for help? Why not me?" Ferid proceeded to annoy the code out of her avatar. The pink haired girl glared down the silver-haired man from where he was standing. How could she respond to something like that? Ferid loved to bother her, in-game and at work, that's for sure. What amazes her is that he just seems to know which are the good times- where she's in complete stress or generally in a bad mood, to nag her. "Shut up Ferid, I don't need you and your worthless bullets." She silenced him and urged Lest's response immediately. Ferid simply pouted, wanting to know in what way Krul needed the bomber's assistance. 

After a good five seconds, the bomber finally replied. "Is that a struggle I see from the queen?" Him too, decided to not benefit the bunny girl in this situation. Krul grew annoyed of her teammates. Lest and Ferid should get lost, heck , the only person that didn't bother her was Crowley. But who would blame her? He was generally quiet, his gun did all the talking. "Be quiet and just listen. I want you to send a staircase of bombs two meters to my side right now." She quickly calculated. That was exactly 300 meters forward but 64 meters up in the sky. Lest checked his rotary chamber, he made sure that all six holes were filled with the explosives. A sigh escaped him. "You should be thankful that I even agreed to help you." He saltily remarked before launching three bombs in the given direction. The small avatar watched with his red eyes how smoke was drawn onto the red sky canvas. 

Krul gasped, "Here they come." The bunny girl stepped back a bit, leaving room for the bomb to crash onto the monster's stomach. Before it completely exploded, she hopped onto it then moved up to the incoming bomb. She felt her knit hat almost get blown away by the blowout. A small screech was heard from gritted teeth. This was harder than it looks. Just the feeling of falling down down to a heart-stopping death was her main concern. Explosion after explosion, the bunny got even higher. Luckily, she didn't miss a step resulting in her respawning screen to pop up. She landed on the monster's shoulder before a sharp glare was seen on the 'pink vampire's ' face. "I'm sorry, what was that? You don't want to be killed?" She taunted the monster. But even roars of this rampaging monster couldn't get the girl to stop. She fired her entire magazine all around its neck, she danced and skipped along, moving from the left shoulder to the right, all while keeping her balance. 

Ferid snickered, watching the spectacle unfold before his red eyes. "Now that's my girl." He commented, observing the tiny girl stomp all around the disgusting creature with nothing but bloodlust and apparent bliss. He truly admired her despite the burning hatred for her affecting him so so much. Crowley and Lest felt it was safe to leave their spots to join the silver-haired demon. The sniper crossed his arms and watched the small bunny girl rip the flesh out of the monster they were just fighting. Distant war cries were heard from above. He chuckled then whistled. "Hey Ferid, you never told me exactly your relationship with Krul Tepes. You guys don't get exactly well at work nor here. So what's up?" He requested an explanation on their whole rivalry. 

The other man made sure that the communicator wasn't on. He didn't want his dear dear Krul hearing this, who knows? She might actually have feelings for the charming man deep down. He didn't want to shatter her little heart...just yet. A laugh was heard from Ferid as the wanted words to explain all of this was found into his mind. "Krul Tepes is a bad woman. Don't let yourself be fooled by her adorable features, her brilliance in advertising, as well as her impressive tactics on how to lead a unit of workers. They call her the assistant manager for a reason. When Sir. Rigr Stafford isn't looking, Krul is up to no good. For example, participating in projects led by other companies." He explained quietly only for Crowley to hear. 

There was a bit of confusion in the sniper's mind. "You desire her power however-" the red and black haired man was cut off by Ferid once more, he had a mocking expression on his face. "Yes yes, I desire her rank and all the authority she has over the workers like us. That's why I love her so much." He said with an idiotic lovestruck smile. But Crowley felt disgust build up inside of him, "You never loved Krul, you only love what she could give you- or let's say, what you could steal from her." He defended the pink bunny whilst she had no idea that a conversation like this was created. Ferid only laughed at Crowley's attempt to disagree with him. He walked circles around him, much to Lest's confusion from a mile away. 

"Crowley Crowley, my boy. Don't you hate it though? How she gives us orders like she's some queen? I'll tell you, there's no queens in our current timeline nor does she own a fragile throne. I'm only telling you this because I know that you're a good person, good people are supposed to get rid of people like Krul." He patted the man on the back before his eyes laid on the small girl who just landed from ride of battle experience orbs. She had a frown on her face. "I'm never fighting a four horsemen of John ever again." She declared while wiping a bit of dust from her massive sleeves. Ferid greeted her with a big smile, "Oh but we're surely gonna bump into one again, you know?" He broke her only hope-filled thought at the moment. Krul wasn't impressed. Way to go Ferid, that's the perfect way to greet your comrades after they basically did all the work for you. Crowley watched the two communicate with a concerned expression. He felt so uneasy about all this. 

Lest stepped up to the two individuals. In his hands were his dual grenade launchers, one's rotary chamber was completely empty, he had to refill it. "Great job today guys. But next time Krul, I'm not helping you anymore." He warned her with a severe look. The pink bunny girl removed her knit hat, a bit of sand specks were seen on top as well as on the fabric-made ears. She sighed and her gloved palm began wiping them off. A few strands of her long pink hair was attached to ponytails, held some by some bat-shaped vampire ribbons. The rest of her her hair that wasn't tied, was instead, left down. "Then what's the point of getting this game if you're not gonna help me?" She grinned. She did have a point. How much was this high-tech game? Its graphics were so well designed, that it would be hard to even compare this to a normal virtual reality game. Lest's serious expression didn't change. "You do know that there's an option to play solo right? I don't need to be associated to my lousy co-workers after my shift." He mentioned. The pink haired girl refrained herself from getting into another fight. She'd hate to waste more ammo in shooting down this brat. 

Ferid moved his left hand up, the game menu showed up. Many buttons and panels were available. The prominent log-off button, game settings, his storage, party management, the guns he was carrying at the moment and the screen he was looking for- the time. The silver-haired vampire's eyes widened on purpose upon realizing what time it was. It was 5PM. Ferid gave a fake gasp and raised his hands in the air in exasperation. "Oh noes my friends! I'm afraid I need to get going now. I have an appointment." He theatrically stated. Silence had fallen on Crowley and Lest Karr. But just by hearing that, it made Krul smile with excitement. "You're leaving? About time, Bathory." She yawned. He should leave her alone more often. She needed the peace and quiet, especially at work. Though just that small remark from Krul wouldn't go unnoticed by the silver-haired man. He chuckled, "You may need some rest as well, my queen." 

Like Ferid, Krul too had many surnames by the players of: 'Seraph of the end'. Ever since her participation in two 'Seraph Squad' matches, the participants have grew afraid of Krul's team. As for the ones that had a chance to score with them on the podium, they just saw Krul's squad as 'tricky competition'. Nevertheless, not everyone in this game feared the four individuals. Heck, there were players that were better than this squad. But what Krul loved the most about this game was the chance to go all out, killing players and monsters to her heart's content without getting arrested in real life. That's what awarded her with the common titles of: 'Pink vampire, bunny girl, pink bunny and Ferid's supposedly favourite: the queen'. 

"As if Bathory! Ugh, Just get going." She shooed him away. If she could, she would have pressed his log-off button for him. Though, life couldn't always go according to plan for her, couldn't it? A chuckle was heard from Ferid as he advanced forward to pat Krul on the head, it was rather easy for him since she was way shorter than he was. He loved her reactions. She was so adorable when her cheeks huffed up in frustration whenever he dared lay a finger on her. "What will you be doing while I'm gone?~ Lament over me leaving you behind?" He teased, that stupid grin never vanishing. Before the argumentent could get any worse between the two, Crowley intervened. He raised his hands. "You two, please stop now. Krul, you are free to choose whatever you want to do next and you Ferid, we wouldn't want you getting late for that appointment of yours, please get going." He advised them. 

Ferid's smile got bigger as he got into a shrugging posture. "Aw you're no fun, Crolwey. Besides, I was simply telling Krul how much I'll miss her while I'm offline." He lied, still keeping an innocent tone in his reply. The tiny queen growled, her red eyes flaring with anger. Not only did it annoyed Crowley even more, but hearing that triggered Lest to step in. "Alright, Bathory. That's enough. Please go." He repeated Crowley's message. The silver haired avatar sighed as he glanced over to the log-off button. Good grief, he didn't have a choice huh? If he stayed much longer, he might receive mini bullets down his throat. "Yes yes, I'm going, I'm going. Don't have too much fun without me~ Oh and Krullie, I'll be back because of my undying love for you." He waved. "Later~!" He cheered one last time before his figure disappeared in a tornado of pixels. The three remaining individuals sighed. 

Lest turned over to Krul Tepes. "So, with one member logged off, ehatare we going to do now?" He asked the squad leader. To his surprise, the bunny girl shrugged. At work, she always had a plan on what to do next so seeing her idealess really shocked the short boy. "Well, we could always train some more. But I'm starting to run out of bullets. I might have to buy some more from the shop." She told the two guys before raising her P90 to her eye-level. In the current magazine she was using, there were 8 bullets left. She really did dominate that monster, didn't she? But what concerned her is that, that's one magazine used, leaving her with 26. 

"I wanted to go explore this new territory I found with a map abandoned in the dungeons in my free time. I'm guessing that's now?" Crowley mentioned his plans for the rest of the evening. Krul allowed him to continue forth with what he had in mind, of course, it would be rude of her to embark on the journey since she wasn't present when Crowley found the map. But she couldn't help but wonder what kind of territory was it. Was it a forest? Another desert? A city left in ruins? So many possibilities. To snap out of her thoughts, she turned to Lest Karr. "And you? What will you be doing while I hop over to the shopping centre and while Crowley tries not to get killed by unknown mobs?" She questioned, joking slightly on Crowley's part. It was true though, he had to be careful for any monsters lurking around that area. 

Lest didn't really know what he had in mind for the rest of the evening. Instead, he went with the most reasonable option for a newbie gamer. "I'll log off, I think I'm getting tired." He confirmed with a small yawn. He stored away his grenade launchers as Krul and Crowley gave him wide eyes. Lest noticed that. "What?" He asked, confused to why he received such reactions. Crowley, "Dude, it's only 5PM, how could you be ready for bed at that time?" answered the small boy's bewilderment. Though to his surprise, the boy wearing a top-hat chuckled. "No, I'm not that tired. I meant tired of playing. I wouldn't want to become addicted to this slaughter world. Video games can really change the way we view the world and people, you know?" He gave a small fact. But Krul and Crowley didn't care much. From there on, Lest knew that those two and possibly Ferid, were attached to this world already. 

He didn't know exactly how many months they've played this game, but he was in fact the newcomer of the squad. He was called by Krul one day, requesting help for the second 'Seraph Squad' tournament. Lest wasn't really into video games actually. He just played them so that he could help his co-worker, that he regretted to befriend, whenever he owed her for her assistance at work. He hated this. "Well I'll be off now, later you two. Don't take the weekend like guaranteed. We still have work next week." He reminded with a strict voice. But that just earned a giggle from the pink bunny. "Come on, you're not Sir Shikama. Stop telling us what to do. You're only a assistant like me." She mentioned. Lest, "We have the same rank at work, Krul. Don't forget that." growled at her giggles. 

"Yeah I know. Oh wait, why? Afraid that I'll taunt you with me possibly getting promoted?" A mischievous grin formed on her lips. That only made Lest more angrier with her. "You will never be promoted if you keep this up." He told her. Right, she won. He fell straight into her trap like she planned. Sneaky bunny. "Oh how sweet of you, Lest! You want me getting a higher rank than you~?" She teased, getting close to his aggravated face. The small boy was upset with her, embarrassed that he fell into her trap like that. His initial reaction was to push her away from him with one gesture. Afterwards, he logged off from this SF world. From there, the four teammates of that squad all went on their own paths. From an appointment, to rest, to an unexplored biome, finishing off with the shopping centre of the broken world of Sanguinem city.  
~~~~~~~~~~~  
In the real world, a man with silver hair walked along the alleyways of his block. A smile fixed on his lips, the same one his avatar constantly had 24/7. He came into a halt when he spotted a man in front of him, he wore a black tuxedo and had a sinister look. Ferid chuckled. "Ah, you just be my partner huh?" He questioned rather innocently. Ofcourse this man would be his partner in whatever plan he would jump onto. That's why he scheduled an appointment after all. The other man didn't answer, instead, "Just get to the point, what do you want me to do?" He asked quietly, in case anyone would hear them. 

Ferid noticed his change of tone, he shrugged. "Come on now, you can speak a little bit louder now. No one can hear us." He affirmed to him, his head turning back occasionally to check for any passers eavesdropping on them. It wasn't completely considered as a 'safe time' to be talking, it was only 5PM after all. They would have scheduled a better time to meet however the other man couldn't, he had plans later today. "Tell me what do you want or else I'm calling this whole deal off." He demanded for Ferid to stop idling. The silver haired figure sighed, alright, time to get serious like requested five minutes ago. "I already gave you the requested guns and in-game cash like you asked, so now it's my turn. All I want you to do is help me and my teammate: Crowley Eusford, take down the infamous tiny queen: Krul Tepes." 

The other man's eyes went wide at his unexpected request. "What? But going after your comrades is against the rules." He reminded with a strict tone. No way could he accepted something as low as that. Then again, Ferid was a crazy man, but had reasonable motifs for something. He turned over to face the man, checking if his smile vanished. It didn't. "I'm sure you don't want to eliminate a player like her out of boredom right?" He asked, to make sure that wasn't the real reason behind all of this. Immediately, Ferid shook his head then laughed afterwards. "You have no idea on who Krul really is. She's a bad person, that's why I'm asking you to help me take her down during the third 'Seraph Squad' tournament." The demon extraordinare repeated his request. It only left his partner to contemplate about all this. Should he accept or refuse? 

Unfortunately, he had to. He had to accept. Ferid already bought him the gear and gave him the requested sum in return for all this. He had to hold his part of the bargain as well. Or else, that'd be rather dirty on his part. This man hated playing dirty. A sigh escaped him as he brought his hand forward to shake Ferid's. A relieved smile was fixed on the eccentric man. "I'm glad you agreed to help me out!" He chimed happily. But the other man shushed him. "Quiet, someone can hear us. Now, explain to me the plan." He ordered sharply.  
Ferid let go of his hand and bowed down dramatically. "You'll love it, sir. Really."  
~~~~~~~~~~  
The pink bunny simply attached a black cloak with pink as its inner lining. She didn't really mind the paparazzi chasing after her when she entered Sanguinem. 'You took the risk to play in a tournament, live with the consequences.' was a quote she'd keep in mind when she wishes to just log-off after running thousand of miles just to get away from the crowds. The task would be simple. Head to the shopping mall, buy P90 magazine and sprint out of here with all your energy left. Her ears twitched at the direction of a loud scream. "Hey look! It's the tiny queen!" A man carrying a F2000 alerted everyone in the area. In one minute, many eyes were landed on Krul. 

She looked all around her. People were getting closer, she didn't like it. "Oh come on, I didn't get the chance to buy my magazines yet!" She screeched then fixed her knit hat that was about to fall off. What to do what to do. Should she run off? Or make a run to the shopping centre? No, she needed those magazines, she was already here so why should she log off now? As the crowds got closer to her, Krul took a deep breath before running inside of the shopping centre several meters in front of her. The distance between her and the people outside would buy her enough time to make her purchases and proceed to get out. When she entered, "Isn't that the pink vampire?" A player addressed to his comrades. It caused a pack of other players to spot her. Right, this would be the downfall of this specific plan of Krul's. 

She took the opportunity of the empty hallways to walk towards the shop's counter. She huffed, she knew she had to make this quick. "I'll have mini bullets, sniper bullets, MGL-140 bombs and medium bullets please. Ten of each magazine please!" She blurted all of her words together. She was truly in a rush here that she didn't realize that she was buying ammo for her comrades. Oh well, she could just say that it's a 'thank you for training with me' gift later on. The clerk nodded at her request and grabbed ten of each like she asked then placed them on the counter. "That'll be around 3,000 credits please." The clerk crunched the prices on their cash register. From there, a small panel popped up on Krul's screen. 

"Would you like to purchase: 10 mini bullet magazines, 10 medium bullet magazines, 10 bombs and 10 sniper bullet magazines?" The panel said. There were two buttons below it: "No" and "Yes." Krul pressed the latter and all 40 magazines were teleported to her inventory. "Thanks again!" She chimed at the store clerk before dashing off out of here. In the distance, a small bunny dressed in a black frilly dress chased by crowds of players, ran off to a safe spot to log-off. This was only the beginning of the heart-pounding adventure Krul had to endure during her time here in 'Seraph of the end'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Hi guys! Author here with the first chapter of Seraph Squads! A crossover story between Sword Art Online Alternative and Owari no seraph! I really hope you enjoy the first chapter! I really enjoyed writing it that's for sure. Anyways, I guess I could write a few things about the chapter itself? Hm...first off, i don't exactly know if the chapters will be as long as this one(4600 words). It will possibly be shorter or longer? Depends of my mood and the ideas I have in store so far. But my main goal in this book will be to write more than 1000 words in the chapters. For years, that has been my usual word limit and I've always wanted to go over it. So I'll try, expect weekly updates though if that's the case. 
> 
> Second thing, What do you think of this story's MCS? Instead of the usual: Shinoa Squad including Mika. Like I explained in my randomness book #2, i have a thing for writing about secondary characters. I don't really know why, I just happen to pay attention to the secondary characters more than the main ones. So here you go! A story where we have the vamp squad as our MCS: Krul Tepes, Ferid Bathory, Crowley Eusford and Lest Karr. I hope I didn't mess up anyone's personalities. The only one I'm truly concerned about is Lest because I absolutely can't write him. The only key words I have for that boy is: "sadistic, jerk, know-it-all, show-off." Yeah I know. Half are mostly directed towards Krul. So that's why Lest's character will be personally triggered(not anger, I mean in general) by Krul's actions. Can't say much about Lest, Crowley and Ferid's reactions towards Bun Bun girl just yet! That's spoilers! 
> 
> Third, the ships. Like I said in my randomness book #2, the only planned canon ships so far for this story will be: Mikayuu and Ferikrul. I know what you're thinking for the latter, "It's technically LLENNxPitohui". Yes yes! I know that! But I just found Ferid appropriate for being Pito! Heck, Krul was gonna be Pitohui originally and Ferid M(Bam! OTP! Asozaki!) But nope, Ferid doesn't always hide all day, instead, he attacks his prey straight on unlike M, who's too much of a coward to do that. Both Ferid and Krul are brutal characters. Who are the two most brutal characters in AGGO? LLENN and Pitohui! There, explanation made. It's still ironic that Ferikrul is my OTP yet Kohiruizaki(LLENNxPito) is my NOTP. But yeah! My point is, those two ships will be canon in this book. There will be more! But I'll need to make up my mind! 
> 
> Fourth, that's all! Wow, this was a long author's note. Again, I hope you enjoyed! And I'll see you guys in chapter 2 of Seraph Squads! Thank you for reading!^^


	2. The treasure from Osaka

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley returns from a quest he stumbled upon in Osaka along with a new weapon. His teammates: Ferid, Krul and Lest ask about his adventure before they all get attacked by a team nearby.

In the prominent territory of the pink vampire, "Aw how nice of you~! It's nice to hear that you risked your composure for me!" The silver haired vampire took a second to observe the stack of magazines he was gifted. When the plastic holders were carefully stored in his inventory, he approached the small girl, that was peacefully sitting on the rock across from his then enveloped her up wth his long arms. Krul, "Hey! What are you doing? Get away from me!" screeched at the feeling of her personal space being engulfed in Ferid's white attire pressing on her black frilly dress. Lest and Crowley watched, unamused. Them too were grateful for their gifts but denied to express any over-the-top emotions like how Ferid did just now. 

When she was finally released out of his grasp, she sent a flying kick to his neck. Using the rock she was standing on as a stool to reach him because she was awfully short. Lest slightly winced at the thud being heard. Though the kick wasn't enough to make Ferid's avatar stumble back. Instead, he laughed and brushed the dust from her boots away from his shirt's collar. "Not quite. If you kicked me harder than maybe you could have dealt damage to my health bar." He advised her. But Krul shot down his advice, her teeth clenched as she growled once more. "Would you cut it out?" She asked, more than frustrated at this point. Ferid smirked, "Cut what out?" He played dumb, like expected. 

"Would you stop being so annoying? Especially towards me! Why can't you hog Crowley and Lest?" She pointed at the two unphased boys beside her. The sniper simply waved at Ferid while the small boy shook his head, growling lightly at Krul for bringing him into the dilemma. "Don't you dare mess with me, silver haired maniac." Lest threatened. While the pink bunny and the sniper were silent, it didn't prevent the silver-haired demon to make a comment out of that. "Maniac? No no I'm afraid you are solely mistaken." Ferid kept his happy smile up. The nuclear tornado rolled his eyes at Ferid Bathory's attempt of a correction. They changed the topic momentarily.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"So Crowley Eusford, you said you went exploring? Did you find anything?" Lest brought up with an intrigued look. In fact, just by that comment, all eyes were laid on him. Easy easy now, everyone..It's no use to change the topic once more, He really had to tell them the tales of what happened yesterday huh? Taking a deep breath, he warned everyone first: "This might get long so I advise you sit down." The sniper told them. Lest was leaned against the rock that Ferid Bathory was sitting on. The only one that wasn't sitting, "Krul, dear, why won't you sit down?" The silver haired avatar advised her with an awful cheerful smile. The one he keeps every single day of his damn life. The pink-haired bunny huffed, already annoyed by his obvious comment. "I'm about to, I don't need anyone telling me the obvious." She crossed her arms then plopped down on her own rock. 

"Are you mad at me? Oh please don't be mad, I can't take your cuteness." He joked, earning a sharp growl from the small girl herself. He just loved to mess around with her, Huh? Will there ever be a day where the man doesn't decide to 'show his affection' to her? Krul lightly clenched her fists before shifting her head to face the sniper in front of her. "Please excuse this jerk, Crowley, go on. Tell us what happened and what goods you came across on." She gave him permission to start speaking. This was going to be a rather long story, he wished that the others were mentally ready for this. Heck, he was glad this wasn't in real life because firstly, he'd run out of breath eventually. Second, the atmosphere in real life would ruin everything. In Seraph of the End, they were in a vast desert coated in complete pink, like you'd find something like that IRL.

"The place that I've been to, how do I explain it..?" He paused to think. He needed to remember what exactly were his surroundings. It was a tad too dark for him to remember the precise details- on the leaves for example. There were loads of them actually, one could mistake it as a forest. It looked more like a jungle due to the massive vines laying everywhere. Lest scoffed at Crowley's pause. "What? Only five seconds in and you're already forgetting stuff?" He mocked. Crowley shushed him, with a non-strict expression on hier lips. "No I was debating if what I saw was a true jungle. It seemed like it." He mentions. Lest nodded in approval, as for Krul, she added: "A jungle huh? Oh I see. I didn't Seraph of the End had jungles in the first place. I'm mostly used to deserts and the broken city of Sanguinem." She admitted to the group. 

Thinking that Crowley would continue, Ferid responded in his place. "You're only aware of those two places in this entire virtual reality world? You should go out more often, perhaps, go out with me?" He had the most smuggest smirk someone could ever imagine. It was quite a hilarious sight for someone witnessing this entire scene unfold. The fact that there was no awkwardness from Ferid nor from the caught-off guard Krul made this ten times funnier. Lest and Crowley had to refrain themselves from laughing after seeing Ferid get rejected. "In your dreams! Creep!" The pink bunny got all defensive. 

"Like I was saying, the jungle was massive. It was bigger than all of Japan, I feel. There were leaves scattered everywhere, on the ground, on the trees. That's why I had hard time looking around, the trees were covering what's rest of the sunshine. When I first arrived, I was slightly terrified. Who knows what kind of monsters could leap at you at any minute. Not a problem for a former soldier in the military in real life. I carefully ventured through the territory of Osaka." Crowley claimed. The mysterious territory reveals to be Osaka huh? Not really much of a shocker but it was truly something. "Osaka? I've never actually been there before. Then again, why would I visit Osaka when I previously resided in Germany?" Lest brought up. Ferid glanced over at his friend. "I've been to Osaka a few times before. Well good job on discovering that place all by yourself, Crowley." Ferid smiled at him. 

The boys then all looked over at Krul, expecting her to make a comment out of all this. The small bunny lifted her head from her nails. "Me? Oh no, I have never been to Osaka before. I'm only familiar with Kyoto." She explained to them briefly. Well that was funny, they are already in Kyoto. Sanguinem was located in Kyoto. Ferid scoffed at her comment. "You know, Osaka's not a bad place for a date-" he was stopped by Krul once more. "Please Bathory, I'd refrain from traveling with you." She shot him down carefully. Crowley sighed, picking up from where he last left off. "I didn't find much in the first few minutes. The place was rather gooey and icky. It gave me an uneasy feeling the entire time I was there. Only in the first ten minutes of entering this place, I heard something growling." He continued, trying to sound as mysterious as possible. He wanted to intrigue his fellow listeners. 

"Growling? Was it like a bear or something?" Krul glanced at Lest and Ferid as confusion struck her. Lest shrugged at her question then said: "You can't find bears in jungles, Krul." He also happened to shoot down her theories on the mysterious creature that Crowley could have possibly heard. "Then maybe,it was a four horsemen of John?" Now that thought had a bit more sense put into it. Four horsemen of John appeared anywhere, no matter what territory you were in. Therefore, there was no such thing as an 'anti-four horsemen of John' area. However, as the two shorties got into a debate on what the creature was, Crowley said: "You're both wrong. It was my stomach." 

That made Ferid the only one burst into a small fit of laughter. Krul and Lest were too heated up in their start of an argument to even realize properly what Crowley had just said. When they finally did, "Wait are you kidding me? It was your stomach?" Lest questioned, half disappointed it wasn't a threatening creature or anything. However, his mood lightened up when Crowley replied to him. "No that was a joke. What I really heard was a four horsemen of John-" A slap was heard coming from Lest and Krul's directions. The small bunny slapped the boy from behind his neck. "See? I told you Lest!" She giggled, occasional chimes escaped her. Lest rubbed the back of his neck, ouch, he had to admit, even though this was VR, that neck slap hurt. 

"But I do confess that, that the four horsemen of John I saw yesterday had a different shape to it. It was turquoise-coloured, with white spikes. It was a bit smaller than the one you took down Krul. It spat out a lot of venom that's for sure. I thought that I would end up back at the respawn zone in Sanguinem but somehow, somehow I just managed to pull through." He explained, remembering the events that happened exactly. The ones that left him frozen up in fear for a short while. Lest, Krul and Ferid paid attention to the next part. "What I did first was to quickly get away from the monster. It was running straight at me. I ran and ran for my life. Not for the exit! That would be coward's way out. Instead, I positioned myself atop a cliff that I luckily managed to climb in a short amount of time. I took out my M14-EBR and tried to target my opponent." He explained, even using his fingers to demonstrate how tight he held his sniper back there. 

"And then what? Did you kill the bastard?" Krul prompted by the build-up of action so far, not even realizing until Ferid slid it in that she cursed. The pink bunny tries her best to not curse as much as the others. But she's the one who's always slipping on her words. Especially in the two previous Seraph Squads. To answer her question, "Not right away. I missed. Like I said before, that four horsemen of John was rather strange-looking." He reminded her only to have Ferid outrageously comment: "You suck Crowley! You shouldn't be the team's sniper!" The silver-haired man meant it as a joke, even proving the following with a laugh. He tensed however when Crowley chuckled back. 

"How about you try sniping for a living. Oh and Ferid, I have shooting experiences in real life, mind you." The shielded sniper rubbed it in his friends' faces. The two shorties of the team were amused while Ferid's teasing smirk never left his face. Man, did he never show any negative feelings? Any genuine feelings as well? Not fake ones. "I'd rather not. Now please continue on." He raised his hand to make a 'shooing' gesture. Crowley inhaled, continuing on with his story. "After I missed my shot, it instantly alerted the monster that I was armed. I reloaded and thus aimed once more. I was surprised when I spotted in my scope that the monster was relatively close to me now." He paused to face his three friends. They all had attentive looks on their faces. 

"This monster may be scary-looking but it was quick! Man that thing almost made me fall off my spot. Since my gun was already loaded, I couldn't waste this opportunity. Even though panic rose inside of me, I still shot. I tested out my luck, would I be able to escape from the cliff and at least deal damage to it?" He paused to make it seem like he was asking the question to his listeners. When he didn't receive a verbal response from them but rather a 'shut up and continue with the story' vibe filling their conversation circle, he sighed, giving in then continued on. "The answer was yes. I managed to pack up my sniper and jump off from the rock before the creature pierced its leg into the rock." He finished that thrilling part of the story, for Crowley, it was more terrifying.

"In case you were wondering, my second shot managed to hit it. This particular horsemen of John had three red eyes on the head. My bullet passed right through one." He explained with a small smile. Even though it wasn't anything to be celebrating at, Crowley was proud to land such a precise shot. "From there on out, I tried to escape the creature as much as possible-" He was interrupted by yours truly: Ferid Bathory. The white-clad man gasped mockingly as Lest just listened to what nonsense he had to say this time.   
"You chicken!" Ferid insulted Crowley. However, before Lest could step in to stop the potential fight between the sniper and demon extraordinaire, "I'll take it as a compliment because if I didn't run away, I wouldn't have defeated the monster." He brushed away Ferid's insult like it was nothing. 

"In fact, running away gave me so much time to spare. It gave me the time to take out my photon sword and slash at that monster from its legs. I admit, the blade of a photon sword was rather sharp and very warm, it was like it could reduce anything to a melting mess. That's what happened next, I cut off the monster's legs which made it completely vulnerable. Its torso along with head all collapsed forward, leaving me the chance to indulge myself into killing that creature once and for all." He explained with a raised fist. His comrades were quite surprised that he managed to kill a four horsemen of John all alone. Usually, the team would work together, assisting eachother out. "Ah how very impressive." Ferid praised, clapping his hands in delight. Krul and Lest didn't bother to make any remarks at the four horsemen of John's defeat. However, the pink bunny showed a small smile. She wanted the story to progress. 

"I gained a lot of experience after killing that creature. What happened next come immediately. There was a cave situated in the distance. I walked in and surprisingly, there wasn't any traps at all. My surroundings were pretty bland so don't bother asking me. At the very end, there was a golden chest awaiting me. Inside, was a sort of reward I guess?" He was interrupted by the white and red haired boy. He opened his mouth curiously: "What was inside of it?" He inquired. Crowley smiled at his curiosity, he raised a finger. "It was one of those anti-tank material rifles that I've always wanted to acquire in this game." He revealed with a proud look. That instantly prompted Ferid to make the next comment. "So like the drops on when you kill a dungeon boss?" He asked in whom Crowley nodded. Lest stretched. "But wasn't that fight rather easy then? A four horsemen of John isn't technically a dungeon boss." He pointed out. 

Crowley had to agree with him. A four horsemen of John wasn't a dungeon boss. So why did the game decide to reward the player so easily? An anti-tank material riffle was a weapon that would be extremely useful during competitions. The sniper shrugged. "For now, I'd theorize that the fact that the four horsemen of John had a different look to it, the game instantly registered it as the 'boss' of Osaka." He explained his point of view on the matter. Ferid changed the topic slightly. "But are you sure you wouldn't have liked it if we came along with you? Too close too close, that battle sounded fun~" he gave imploring puppy eyes- one that could rival Krul's adorable expressions. Especially when she wanted cherry juice back at Sanguinem's bar. Crowley exhaled before dismissing Ferid's begging eyes. "Fine, If i find a map that leads to an unexplored place, then maybe that could be scheduled as a team trip." He promised. Te three seemed satisfied with his response. 

"Hey Crowley, you said you found an anti-tank riffle?" The pink haired bunny girl inquired, hopping off her rock. Yep, that was definitely what he said. Unless he was lying of course to get his teammates' hopes up for nothing. It was always exciting when you hear that you've access to a perk. Let alone, a literal player-mutilation machine. One pierce through flesh, you are absolutely dead and probably ripped to shreds. Point is, no one should underestimate the bullets of an anti-tank riffle. The sniper nodded at the team leader's question. Then afterwards, he nodded once more at her next question. "Could we get a good look at it?" The bunny queen asked. His left hand slid to the right, opening up a small menu in front of him. He made his way to his storage where the name: 'M14A1' was seen in bold text. That must be the gun.

When he clicked on the regular showing those words, a rather long gun appeared in his hands. It was heavy to someone like Ferid, Krul or Lest but for Crowley, he wasn't even pulled down when it landed directly in his arms. He showed an emotionless look as he brought it closer to his comrades. The gun looked amazing. It had a terrific scope and the muzzle was shiny as ever. "This it'll surely kill the players in one go!" chimed Krul, bam I gotta her head away from the thin muzzle. Ofcourse, she was getting a tad too confident there. Crowley may be a sniper but he did occasionally miss from time to time. Not to mention, wielding a heavy gun like that could take hours of practice just for precision. The other two were silent, as they observed the stunning weapon from up-close. That's when, 

"I hope today's training will go well today. I haven't been here before." A voice was heard from t(e distance. It was coming their way. Crowley was about to summon his M14-EBR from his inventory when Lest raised his hand out. "Stop. I think there are other players coming our way." He announced to his teammates quietly. He still kept low despite being sat up on the rock. He immediately hopped off when hearing the voice of the man that had just spoken. Crowley was ducked and Ferid bent down, he still kept his back against the solid object. "Well yeah obviously, why don't we take the gun for a test run?" The silver haired player suggested. You know, it wasn't all that bad. It would take time to set up though. Hopefully these players were newbies and wouldn't notice a tripod being set up at the moment.   
~~~~~~~~~~~  
"I can't believe Crowley wanted us to watch." Ferid grumbled, his red eyes fixed on the approaching players. There were three of them. One had brown hair, the second had blonde locks while the last one had black. "Seems to be a trio...all carrying the exact same gun." Lest barely made out, his voice was audible on the communicators. There were three giant rocks in their current territory. Lest was hiding behind the one on the left, Crowley was behind the centre one, his M14A1 atop the rock itself. The last one, the right, Ferid and Krul we're behind those. "Please specify?" The sniper asked for precision as he set up the closeness of the scope. Lest sighed. The guns came into view as the enemy drew closer to them. "They're all carrying assault riffles: AR-15's." He reported. 

Crowley nodded at Lest's precised report before fixing the lens of his scope. "Thanks. How about the distance between us and the enemy?" He asked next. From the way he was speaking, it was if he was the team leader and not Krul. Oh well, the pink bunny certainly didn't mind him asking questions like this. For all she knows, Crowley could be in charge of these sniper-like trails. She idolized the way he gave commands around as if he was a professional squad leader. Then again, he was apart of the military in real life. "Around 400 meters. They're close, don't you think? How's the gun doing?" Ferid answered this time. Krul peaked over the top of the rock, she gave a small sound. "Hmm..from here, it looks like 30 meters, no joke." She groaned. Just what were these people doing in her territory? Hasn't she made this clear to the public yet? The pink desert belonged to her. 

"Alright, well. The gun is ready, acquiring target right now." Crowley brought his right eye to look through the scope. With the world all zoomed up, he could even point out features that the three players had that were different from each other. For example, the brunette had two different colour eyes-presumingly contacts, the blonde had freckles and the black haired boy had scratches on his forehead. Hey all carried their AR-15's while being clad in dark green camouflage jackets. "Haven't you heard the news though..man? This is the vampire queen's territory. We're so gonna die here." The man in black warned. The brunette, who seems to be the team leader, did a 'shooing' gesture. "Nonsense. That greedy chibi can't hog this place for all eternity. Besides, I don't even think they're around!" He deliberately laughed. 

The two boys behind him glanced at eachother nervously before nodding. "Whatever you say, sir." He black haired man answered promptly. It was true though, the pink bunny's team seems to be absent this instance, atleast. That's what they thought. Little did they know. "Aim locked on their leader, the brown one." Crowley declared to the rest of his team. Lest, Krul and Ferid's eyss widened as the loud 'bang' was going to be heard in any minute. Hopefully the first shot wouldn't be a huge disappointing fluke. It would of kind been embarrassing given the fact that Crowley was the legendary shielded sniper. It would give the absolute 'noob' team a bad impression on them. The sniper took a deep breath then proceeded to bring his finger to squeeze the trigger. He made sure the bullet circle was directly placed in the man's chest, then...

A loud 'bang' was heard coming from Crowley's end. If it weren't for his high strength skill, he would have probably dislocated his shoulder and stumble over. Like damn! The momentum could surely be your assassin in this game. Because he was so strong, Crowley only flinched, the gun slightly trembling off the rock for a quick second. He managed to keep it still though, for he was holding onto the tripod with his other hand. Ferid was grinning mischievously as he waited for the bullet to pierce through the enemy, Lest only blinked and Krul had to cover her ears then refrain herself from reacting. The enemy team stopped in their tracks, having heard the loud gunshot. The blonde, "Eh? Did you just hear a gunshot?" inquired to the two other members of his team. He certainly wasn't going crazy, the other members of the team agreed with him, they must have heard it too. "Perhaps we've overstayed." The black haired boy began to cower out in fear. However, "Let them come! We'll destroy that team!" was their leader's response. 

Seconds after he had said that, "G-Guk!" a sharp needle-like feeling tore his chest apart. There was more of that gushing blood fragments spilling out of his chest and mouth. The team leader was definitely wounded....and he was going to die. The two other members of the team gasped as they had just noticed their leader's health bar go down. It just confirmed Ferid and Krul's suspicions of them being a 'noob' team. Well for starters, they immediately bent down to ask if their leader's alright when he clearly wasn't. Next, they didn't bother keeping their guard up for any possible enemies after that first shot. The pink haired girl sighed, albeit bored, she stil felt bad for their lack of attention. She pressed a button to turn her communicator on. "I feel bad, perhaps that was too mean. Can we go easy on the last two?" She requested. 

Crowley's eyes narrowed upon seeing the leader's body vanish into a mist of particules. Yep, he must have spawned back in Sanguinem. He sighed then formed up words to answer the official squad leader of KFLC's question. "Actually about that, I already have a plan." He stated, earning multiple confused sounds coming from both Lest and Krul. Ferid chuckled at their reactions and from his line: "Aww! Both of you are so adorable when confused~" he complimented with a cheerful look. Crowley rolled his eyes then refilled the bullet chamber with another sniper bullet. Another question came from Ferid. "But seriously Crowley, did you already have this plan planned out?" He inquired, still hiding behind that rock. It was hard to actually answer that question for some odd reason. Not because Crowley was uncertain of his answer but more because he knew one of his comrades wouldn't like the plan. "I thought about it just now actually. Thanks to those beginners over there, they gave me the time to think." He protested. An answer came almost directly from the silver haired player as he watched the two players observe their surroundings as asked of their leader before he respawned back in Sanguinem. "Oh! Don't keep us waiting now!~ What's the plan?"   
~~~~~~~~  
The four members of team KFLC were in their positions. Crowley had managed to refill his beloved M14A1, Ferid had his M24 out, it was a gun he found a while ago but always felt the need to stick with his fabulous KTR-09, Lest had one of his MGL-140's in his hand as he laid on his back. Finally, Krul was only armed with her dagger, she gave a nervous glare in the directions of Lest and Crowley. She wouldn't even bother with wiping that smug grin off of Ferid's lips, seeing she was so vulnerable compared to them. "I hate you for putting me as decoy once again." She huffed, addressing to Crowley. The man didn't seem too insulted by her phrase, instead, she just gave her the signal to begin the plan. "Yeah yeah, we'll see if you'll hate me after this plan succeeds." He stated. He gave Krul the green light to start running. 

The small bunny queen leaped atop the rock and furiously rolled off the rock. Upon getting back up from her roll, she began to charge towards the two players. Thankfully, they noticed her coming their way, or else Krul would have felt bad for actually conducting this plan. "Isn't that-" the blonde started. His comrade that was beside him confirmed his thoughts. "It's her. The pink bunny queen." He gulped as the small girl only closed the gap between them even more. Crowley and Ferid watched from their scopes. Lest simply stayed in a supine position. The two boys began shooting directly at her, though luckily, bullet lines exist in 'Seraph of the end.' She could easily dodge their bullets.   
However, she remembers that Crowley gave her a few lessons on how to dodge bullets if anyone used silencers. 

"Hup! Hup!" Krul gave them a big smile as she dodged the attackers in a rather elegant manner, making it seem like they were missing her from a far shot. She leaped in the air, did several backflips and even changed the direction she was running in many times. Seeing her dodge all of the bullets, the boys reloaded their guns. "Oh crap.." the black haired boy muttered then stepped back. "She's fast on her feet!" He declared and began shooting once more. Krul dodged with ease however, there was one where she was too slow in reaction-time. A single bullet grazed her exposed shoulder. She clenched her teeth and still kept her smile, she had to keep going. The gap between the three players closed even more. "A delicate individual, my queen. You certainly earn a 10/10 from me." Ferid complimented, watching her move so easily through the hail of bullets. Krul growled at his voice reaching her end. "I'm about to impress you even more, Bathory. So shut your mouth." 

She was now two inches away from the two boys. There was a clear opening between them. That's where she was going to compete her task of the plan. Though, she did promise the silver haired man that she would impress him, might have to have a little bit of fun while she's at it. "That's it for my big debut!" She told the two boys, her palm lifting to make a peace sign at them then with all the momentum from her dash, she sheathed her dagger back in its holder on her waist then flung herself to the ground. Her hands pressed on the ground and acted as support as she lifted the rest of her body off the ground. The bunny did a double back hand-spring, while bullets were still being shot at her. She missed every shot despite her legs being completely exposed to them. She finished her trick with a double backflip. Again, all the shots missed. When she landed, the two boys completely lost sight of her. "H-Huh?!" They both yelped, confused as smoke entered their field of vision. That was Lest's doing, he fired two bombs to give Krul an opportunity to recover. 

The two remaining members of the enemy team was more than confused at this point. However, they couldn't focus on their bewilderment at the moment for two crashing bombs came in their direction. "Gah! Watch out!" The blonde man warned his comrade before leaping towards his left, where he tightly hugged the ground. The two managed to escape from being crammed by Lest's bombs. But they did have a few scratches on their arms and face. Not to mention, they had smoke on their camouflage jackets. What they didn't know however was that the nuclear tornado's attack was only a mere distraction. The minute they jumped to the ground, a stinging pain was felt through their chests. "G-Gah..." blood poured out their mouths. That's right, the two men were too astonished looking for Krul that they were completely still for a minute or two. Crowley and Ferid used that opportunity to their advantage. 

The blonde and black haired man disappeared into a pile of particles. They all received a bit of experience for slaughtering a player. Despite Ferid and Crowley actually assaulting them in some way. Though they couldn't have done all that without Lest's bombs and Krul's return to the race. The sniper sighed in relief as there weren't any more locatable enemies in their field of view. He asked the pink bunny to retreat immediately before she gets shot at. Krul did so, she dashed back towards the rocks where her comrades were hiding behind of. When she did, "That fight was too easy. What were those two doing?" Lest brought up as he sat beside Crowley in the centre. The man with red and black hair simply shrugged at his question. "Probably tryhards That think they can beat us." He gave him his honest thoughts.

The two other members of KFLC didn't pay much attention to the conversation between the nuclear tornado and the shielded sniper. Well, the vampire queen tried to however she just couldn't without the pestering Ferid telling her nonsense as always. His back was leaned against the rock she was sitting on. "I saw that my dear~ You really impressed me." He smirked, wanting to catch her reaction. Just like always, the pink bunny gave him a cold look. "Why thank you, can you do any better? I'm curious." She boasted, arrogance building up inside of her. That only made Ferid chuckle. "Too proud Krul, too proud." Just like that, the four went back to discussing about the M14A1, without any interruptions this time, they hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Hello guys! Author here! What did you guys think of this chapter, any predictions on what will happen? To be quite honest, when I originally posted this story on Wattpad, there was a massive delay between chapter 1 and 2. It was because I didn't have motivation to write Crowley's explanation(For some reason, I dislike describing places) on how he got the M14A1. My original idea was for him to face even more monsters when inside the cave but gave up on the idea because I would never finish this chapter. So to make it up, I thought about a battle scene between KFLC and that noob team! What do you guys think? Did Crowley have a good plan? Anyways, the next chapter will focus on real life! and the players' real life identities. I hope you'll enjoy! This wraps up this author's note! Cya cya!^^


	3. An unannounced meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a workday for the four individuals and as they head on to the Amusphere office, Lest Karr and Krul Tepes are called over to Shikama Doji’s office.

It was 7:10AM, a pair of brown eyes fluttered open at the sound of an alarm going off. Ugh, right it was morning. A petite girl stepped out of bed and very gently, turned the alarm clock off. This girl was the person behind the adorable little bunny queen. Both were remarkably 145cm, both have pink hair, just different hairstyles and she decided to use her real name for her avatar. She quickly washed up, brushed her teeth and got dressed into a white shirt with a black skirt. There was also a black tie wrapped around her neck as well as golden bracelets around her wrists. The girl tied one strand of her hair into a braid while attaching multiple flower clips onto it for show. Finally, she walked off to the kitchen where she grabbed her bag containing all the written reports she had to get done for the week then slipped into her black heels. 

As if on cue, she spotted a silver convertible waiting outside her apartment. She flinched at the closeness, walked out anymore and she might have tripped onto the bumper. "Well well, if isn't her majesty Krul Tepes? Get in." It was the silver haired, Ferid Bathory. The pink haired girl rolled her eyes and just walked over to the front seat. Crowley was in the back, sipping on a cup of coffee. When the door shut, Ferid proceeded to back the car up in order to return to the road. "You look ravishing, as always." He complimented Krul with a cheerful look like most days. "Hm, why thank you. I see you never lost your detestable grin." She mentioned, smiling at him sweetly. There was clear hatred for one another here, Crowley observed the two quietly. This just happens everyday, he was used to it. 

"But it's charming right?" Ferid laughed at Krul's comment. The car began to drive on a fine road, narrowed down because of the forest-like environment they were in. "No." The pink haired girl simply responded to his question. It earned her another laugh from the driver. His free hand gave her the hot cup of coffee, "It wouldn't be fair if me and Crowley enjoyed a cup of hot coffee this nice morning, why don't you have some, my queen?" He asked, occasionally glancing at her, he surely couldn't go one day without looking at her cute face atleast once. Krul looked down to face the cup of coffee, a cold glare was seen on her face. "You didn't poison it, now did you?" She inquired, slightly sniffing the warm drink in her hands. It truly did smell like delicate coffee. But she just wanted to make sure. Once again, Ferid acted like a complete moron. 

"Ouch! I'm hurt! I can't believe you would accuse me of doing such a thing." The silver haired man chuckled a few times before that. Ferid truly was a lost cause. She turned over to Crowley for guidance. The man with red and black hair took another small sip from his own cup then gave Krul's obvious eyes. "If he really did poison it, would I still be drinking? Seriously, he didn't." The buff man responded. He leaned against the backseat as more air wafted through their hair locks. Krul reluctantly drank from the cup, she found herself discovering that the beans were absolutely divine. Ferid sure does know how to make coffee. "Very much appreciated, Bathory." She absolutely refused to say the word 'thank you' to a pest like Ferid. Sure they've known eachother for awhile now, but they weren't exactly considered to be on 'good terms.' 

Every day, Krul would be picked up and dropped off by Ferid. Though since Crowley lived closer to Ferid, he figured that it wouldn't be too bad If he picked up and dropped off the both of them. It was always nice to chat to someone on the way to work and home. However, there was always one question on the red and black haired man. "Hey Ferid, I've got to ask, why do you always insist that I stay in the back?" He questioned. It was true though, why did he have a full bench all to himself? While his 'rival' was sitting right beside him in the front? Ferid laughed upon hearing the sniper's question. Thankfully, it was a red light. The vehicle stopped and the silver haired man had the time to glance back only to catch Crowley's amused look. Was he getting on to something? 

"Well for example, if we ever get in a car accident, atleast you won't be the first to die! Ahaha~" Ferid cackled, glancing immediately towards the pink haired girl in the front passenger seat. She surely wasn't amused. "No offense of course!" Ferid smiled at her cold glare. She's so cute though, taking jokes way too literally. To his surprise, the small girl didn't really say much about it. She just shifted rather uncomfortably. He couldn't make any more comments about the joke before the light turned green again. Ferid began driving once more along the thin roads. To end off this topic once and for all, Ferid said: "Or maybe I just like to see my dearest Krul's cute face whenever. Remember that Crowley." He rephrased his precious statement to him. Krul felt herself tensing up at his chosen response. Crowley just nodded, the silver haired man could see him from the rear-view miroir.

"Anyways, I'd like to discuss about SSIII coming up tomorrow." The sniper chose the new topic to their conversation almost simultaneously. Ferid and Krul's eyes widened slightly at not only the his's choice but the announcement. Was there gonna be another SSIII? It had already been three months since the last tournament and Krul surely had a good time going up against Ferid and Crowley with the help of Lest. Now that there was going to be another tourney, the two boys in the car with her would expect her and Lest to team up with the, forming the legendary KFLC squad all over again. "Tomorrow? Why have they announced it so late?" The pink haired girl asked, something was not adding up here. If a game hosted a competition as important as SS, shouldn't they have announced it to the public sooner than today? 

"They didn't. They announced it one week ago actually. I just held myself off from telling you guys. I thought you might have known for yourselves." The man in the back gave a smug eye brow raise. Crowley was a man in whom they call: 'Last-minute.' A few chuckles from Ferid were heard as his hands still stayed fixed on the steering wheel. "You are so silly, Crowley. You should have told us next time. You know I don't exactly follow up on 'Seraph of the end' often. I play other games too." He brought up. It was no surprise that Ferid revealed that he played other games before. The two of them practically knew. It's just, he spends more time in a game called: Bloody blades. Again, it's an RPG-type game that has 8-bit graphics. Not only that, he also plays a TRPG game called: Beginning of Destiny, it was recommended by a friend of his. The man did enjoy both and still continues to play them no matter the popularity 'Seraph of the end' was getting. "Don't you like a good surprise? Right your majesty?" The sniper chuckled, then addressed to silent silent Krul. 

A huff was heard from her as she stayed laying down against the headrest of the seat. No, she shouldn't get too comfy. This car belonged to a smug pest that only wants to hold power over others. "I don't like surprises, no." She discarded Crowley's attempt to prove a point. It earned a laugh from Ferid and a bored expression from Crowley. "See? Krul Tepes has spoken, don't keep any surprises from us again, got that?" He made Crowley promise him. Although, je was a bit relieved that Krul agreed him. Not because it gave him the impression he wasn't alone, but maybe more so he could threaten the man in the back. What was also remarkable was that both men were awfully fond of using Krul's 'Seraph of the end' aliases as an excuse to mockingly treat her like a real queen. But for Ferid's burning hatred for her, he just saw a fake queen, a wannabe ruler who is showered by her own lies. That's what she wanted to make the people of his workplace realize. 

"Unfortunately, I'll keep that in mind." The black and red haired man replied to the silver haired driver's request. Silence had entered then left for a minute as the car gently drove in a mediocre speed. Then finally, "Point is, are we entering?" The sniper asked to the two main attackers of the team. Good question. Were they? Well, Crowley and Krul have entered all two SS's so far. Ferid and Lest made their grand debut back in SSII. Now SSIII gave them the opportunity to unite together and their skills to form the greatest and strongest team in all of 'Seraph of the end.' The one to answer to Crowley's question was the pink haired Krul, her eyes were still fixed on the scenery. It truly was a beautiful day outside, right? "Depends if Lest wants to join. I hate to say it but KFLC is nothing without our nuclear tornado." She stated. 

There a few more stoplights and tunnels to take before they arrived at the official 'Amusphere' complex. Ferid drove towards the parking lot. Right, they'll think more about SSIII and Lest's potential participation later. They have just arrived at work, they should be focusing on that. It wasn't everyday that you get the job at the company who literally builds the machine in which the four of them have been binge playing for the past months.   
~~~~~~~~  
"Why do you never invite Lest when we're driving here?" inquired the pink haired girl as she walked up the building's front steps. The silver haired man was beside her and the buff guy was behind as usual. I think it's a practical mock to have Krul in front just because she was so short. Ferid held the door open for his two co-workers, especially for Krul because like they always say: "Ladies, first." But in his mind, Krul was no lady. She was a lying hypocrite that just wanted authority. Power, more more power, that's all she needed to function. Ferid needed to keep a close eye on her in that case. "I could've of! But the boy insists on arriving bright and early. Not to mention, je doesn't want to waste petrol." The silver haired man stated. The three of them entered the building, only to be greeted by two other humans. One had soft blue hair and green eyes while the other had black hair and grey eyes. The two waved at their superiors, they were just ordinary delivery men among the other individuals here. 

"Lacus, Rene, delivering I see? So early?" The eccentric one walked up to the two and did a little handshake. Lacus laughed. "As always, man, boss Shikama is always so hard on us. Always being like: 'Get these amuspheres delivered to the local game store as soon as possible!' " he imitated the demanding boss before walking off with a pile of boxes attached on a trolley. Rene had a serious expression on his face while Lacus was laughing to himself. The three did have to admit, it was a pretty good impression of Mr. Doji. Arriving inside of the lift, Krul raised her hand to press the button leading them to their floor. Ofcourse, she just couldn't have a single minute to herself. "Are you sure you can reach or do you want me to do it?" Ferid broadly grinned, leaning on the elevator's rails. Crowley simply rolled his eyes, he was pretty used to it by now. Krul curled her palm into a fist then glared at Ferid. "You see, this is why you should invite Lest to join us in the mornings. Bull crap like this won't happen on his watch." She threatened to literally beat the hell out of him if he said another word. 

"What? But I think riding a bike to work is quite pleasant." The buff man intervened, he was quite athletic actually which explains why he had more muscles than Ferid and Lest. Crowley doesn't only practice shooting, swordskill nor play games all the time, he plays a few sports as well. For example, soccer, tennis and baseball. Let's not forget cycling, he loves cycling is practically at Lest's level in riding bikes. Both can ride through high hills or when control themselves when sliding down a mountain. Ferid and Krul still loose their balances and often crash into trees or bushes when attempting to do so. The important part is that everyone knew how to bike without helmets....possibly. "It tires me out. Especially when your back tire isn't pumped. Extra pedalling for nothing." Krul responded, finally pressing the button. Still though, massive props to Lest Karr for coming to work everyday with only a bike. Maybe living so near to their workplace gives him an advantage? 

It didn't take too very long for them to arrive at their designated floor. The elevator doors opened and the three fled out. They were greeted by the early-comers. As an example, there was Chess Belle and Horn Skuld who were quite delighted to see Crowley arrive. Well Ferid as well, but they always found him to be quite delirious at times or even strange, they didn't know how to explain it. As for Krul, they don't really talk much, Chess and Horn only make sure to respect her humbly. She was their superior after all. Then there was Esther, who always manages to arrive 20 minutes before his friend: Lucal Wesker. He was a good worker under Lest's faction. Right, someone should probably explain the factions orders. Basically, everyone works for Shikama Doji. So therefore, everyone is technically considered inside of Mr. Doji's faction. After him, it splits into two other factions. Urd Geales and Rigr Stafford's. 

Actually, Lest, Krul and two other workers of theirs named: Nix Parthe and Ky Luc were apart of Urd Geales' faction. While the exception of Ferid Bathory and Basteya Irclu were apart of Rigr Stafford's faction. After those two, Lest, Krul and Nix gets their own factions. They've got a few workers in their own factions, there isn't really an imbalance between the three. Afterwards, there's the building team. Those who builds the amuspheres, Ky Luc's faction. His team is composed by a bunch of workers and Basteya Irclu, who isn't working under him. Finally, there was a mistake. Ferid Bathory was just an ordinary worker like Crowley. His job was to spread the news around on their new product or coming up with ideas on how to improve their product or handle complaints about the amusphere. He wasn't allowed to have a faction yet he was very smooth with words. The man talked his way into making a faction for himself. Luckily, the given opportunity didn't go to waste. Crowley, Chess, Horn, Fuole Honte, Lacus and Rene were apart of his faction. That's the explanation. 

Chess Belle and Horn Skuld got off their computers and walked out of their cubicles only to greet the man with black and red hair. "Hey Crowley, how are you doing?" The blonde woman smiled warmly at him while the smaller girl with blue hair pouted. She had her hands on her hips. "You were one minute late man. Respect your routine! I believe it's the first time you came at this time!" She practically scolded him. As the three individuals got into a conversation, Krul walked off towards her workspace. Again, like said earlier, she couldn't have a minute to herself or even a day without interruptions from an idiot. "Ferid, stop following me everywhere. Will you?" She growled under her breath. But the man still kept a cheerful smile as he twirled his fingers around his own hair. "But why not? I like following you around." was his excuse. At this point, Krul's growl was audible for both of them to hear, for her to enjoy and for a Ferid to fear. "You're getting creepy. Wait no, my bad. You're always creepy." She corrected herself earning a quiet laugh from Ferid. "How cruel." 

Krul opened the door to the room where all her things were. It was a pretty small room, enough to fit three computers at least. This room was where the advertisers worked. Which were: Lest, her and Nix. She walked inside and sat down at her desk, which was the one at the right. Nix was at the left and Lest was in the centre. Speaking of Lest, his chair turned around to see the small boy with his arms crossed. "Look who it is." He declared with a serious tone. Ferid laughed and Krul only rolled her eyes. She didn't have time for this. "Did somebody get off at the wrong side of the bed this morning?" The taller man inquired to the red and white braided boy as he walked even closer. "Halt there Bathory and no, I didn't. Did you?" Lest raised a hand out, stopping Ferid in his tracks. Krul sometimes envies how Lest was able to make Ferid stop under his commands. Whenever she tried something like that, the man would always do something blunt. Like disobey her orders and hug her when she clearly demanded him to cease. 

"Oh no, I can't actually. My bed's against the wall. If I tried rolling off to the right, I'd just bump myself against the wall." Ferid claimed. Lest moved his hands to tap a few things on his computer, right, the boss assigned him to skim over a document on the estimation of prices for the amusphere. In fact, it seems everyone was doing something different today. Krul had to work on advertising on sites as well as earn sponsorships while Nix had to edit through the ad Lest and Krul sent him last week. Krul sighed as she continued to search through virus-free sites. Her eyes lifted to face the smiling man who was still by Lest's desk. "State your business, Bathory." The small boy grew impatient of his presence here. He was being watched and it was absolutely disturbing. Despite Ferid being a lower-rank than him, it still builds some sort of pressure knowing he was allowed to have a faction. 

"Oh nothing really, I'm bored out of my mind. That's why I'm staying here." He cheerfully told the two shorties working by their desks. Lest and Krul glanced at eachother, both seeming to have annoyed looks. That is, the silence broke when the pink haired girl asked a question but not before she found a legal site for advertising. With her mouse, she clicked on it, made sure there weren't any scams nor viruses on it a second time then searched for a place to post an ad. "I seriously doubt you finished all of your work for the week." The pink haired girl scoffed slightly. It was true though, Ferid Bathory finishing all of his paperwork for the entirety of seven days. Though surprisingly, the girl received a chuckle from the taller man. Did she found out the truth? "Ah, you caught me. I didn't. But why can't I just stay here to hang around with my friends for a little while?" It was quite funny actually, Ferid don't really consider those two as friends seeing they're so hostile around him. The only one he truly considered as an ally was Crowley. Atleast he was bearable. 

"Friends? You hung out with us yesterday." Krul reminded with slit eyes. Despite them seeming rather close by their interactions on that augmented reality game, they didn't really seem that way during work period, or rather, real life. The only one who does an effort at being friendly was Ferid. But no one really knows if that's a facade or not. "Oh yeah but that's 'Seraph of the end'. I'm talking about real life here. There's a fine difference between online and offline meetings." He leaned against the wall, sticking around for a good minute or two just for the purposes of pissing the two workers off. They hung out yesterday as well as before before yesterday. It was without a doubt that they'd be playing tomorrow after work. It was so incredibly lucky that SSIII was being held exactly at 4PM, the four of them usually finish around 3:40PM. So they have some time. "I suppose so. But still, begone. The boss will potentially fire you if you don't do your work." Lest gave him one last warning. 

Compared to Krul, he was able to make him cease, finally. His blabbering mouth can be shut at once. Ferid did a small wave to the two workers before he walked out of the door. "Alright alright, I guess it would be inconvenient if I did get fired. Well, I guess I'll see you during break. Later! Oh and Krullie dear~ I love you!" He waved at them enthusiastically before popping out of the room and having the manners to shut the door behind him. Krul grumbled under her breath, well this just dampened the mood. Still, she remained focus and kept working. What she didn't know was for a second, Lest eyed her down with a neutral expression. How does she deal with someone like Ferid Bathory? "Does he actually mean it when he says that he "loves" you?" Lest raised a brow, realizing that Krul wasn't going to glance back at him and ask why he was staring at her. Upon hearing the question, "Frankly, I don't want to know the truth." Krul responded passively. 

After leaving the advertisers' office, Ferid made his way back to his cubicle. His was right in front of Crowley's and it was beside Fuole Honte's. He sat down on his chair and opened his computer. Well, it was time for work. Before he could even log onto his account, a call was heard right in front of him. Crowley was standing up and being quite tall, he can see over the dividers between him and Ferid. He waved at him. "So what did he say?" Crowley asked, his hands pressed on the top of the cubicle. Ferid looked lost for a second. What was he talking about? He inserted his username and password thus logging into his account then looked up at Crowley, who was basically towering over him. "Was I supposed to tell them something?" He asked the taller man. It was then that Ferid remembered what he was supposed to tell them- especially Lest Karr. "Did you really forget that quickly? You could've asked Lest if he wanted to participate in SSIII." The buff man seemed a tad disappointed. But Ferid assured him that it wouldn't be a big deal. They still had a whole day.   
~~~~~~~~  
A few more hours passed and it was finally known as: Work period. All employees have arrived in the building and are by their cubicles. Man, it would be a busy day today, wouldn't it? Ferid and Crowley were hard at work, writing down ideas for their new product: The amusphere. It was quite popular among the townspeople all around the world at the moment. At least, that's what they thought. The silver haired man typed a few things on his computer before he rolled his chair back, Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're already done." He sighed, already knowing that his friend had in mind. Ferid stood up from his cubicle, with a smug grin on his face. "Of course not~" he responded. Right, he was going on "break" for the fifth time today. 

"If you keep this up, Mr. Doji will surely notice something." Crowley warned, still typing at his keyboard. However, Ferid shook his head. "He won't notice anything if he's always by his office." He snickered before walking off towards the advertisers' office. God, Crowley just didn't know what to do with this man anymore. Why was he still rooting for him? Was it because of all their time spent in 'Seraph of the end'? He really didn't know. Nevertheless, When Ferid arrived by the advertisers' room, he calmly knocked on the door. "Open up~" he quietly cooed from behind the door. Unfortunately, his voice could be heard from Krul and Nix's side, they were the nearest to the door. As the pink haired girl stood up to answer it, she was stopped by Lest extending a hand. "Stop, it's Ferid Bathory again." Lest interjected with an evident glare.

Nix rolled his eyes, scrolling down the page a bit more using his mouse. He stretched back, "Well he came here several times already. Tell him to shut up." The man responded impatiently. Krul sighed, just hearing her co-workers' complaints encouraged her not to open the door. When he came here the first time, he simply wanted to borrow a pen, turns out, he overstayed his welcome.   
All the other times were visits of consecutively thirty minutes each. The three were sick and tired of Ferid Bathory's nonsense. "If I don't answer the door, he'll just keep coming back." She whispered to the two. Lest and Nix both rolled their eyes, were they really giving her the decision to open the door or not? "You both suck." She spat harshly as if understanding the conclusion. Answering the mad man would be her choice after all. Just because she was the oldest. 

"Lord Karr, Lord Parthe. Please open up for lil' ol' me?~" Ferid called out for: behind their door. Nix, Krul and Lest all groaned. Was he ever going to shut up? The pink haired girl turned over to Lest, giving him slit eyes. "I'm gonna answer." She responded before standing up. The other boy crossed his arms, glancing away for a brief moment. She just didn't get it, did she? If she didn't answer, he would stop coming. Well dear Lest, that's incorrect. Krul was right to answer the door, it would shoo him away for several minutes. It's a tactic from dealing with Ferid many years ago. Eventually, Krul opened the door, glaring right at the taller man in front of her. He gave her a sweet smile before calling: "Krullie dear~" he started, looking over at the annoyed Lest Karr and Nix Parthe. Krul herself didn't seem too pleased. "What do you want?" She questioned, getting straight to the point. 

"I finished with work, I'm bored, can I not talk to my friends?~" He complained at his friends. Lest quietly hissed, trying his best to focus on the essay he was writing. Nix couldn't focus at all, he simply listened through the conversation inches away from him. "We all know that's a load of bull. Get back to work." She ordered. Ferid only smiled even more at that, ahaha there goes his points being right. See? He was right after all! He told Crowley that she acts like a total queen, like she ran this place. Who was he to follow orders? "But that's boring~" he retorted. There was a bit of silence between the individuals before Krul spoke once more. "I wonder why you aren't fired yet, Bathory boy." The worker in front of the doorframe and her, only laughed. "I don't know why mr. Doji wanted me to stick around for much longer." He admitted. 

"Well whatever, I can end your career at the moment. It's best not get on my nerves, your superior, mind you." She gritted her teeth. But to her surprise and probably frustration, Ferid leaned down, the conversation could now only be heard between the two of them. He cupped her cheek, stroking her soft pink hair. "Such arrogance, my beautiful queen. Do remember that if you ever decide to tell mr. Doji of my disturbances, I'll have you reported for being involved with other companies such as: Nervegear." He threatened, a small smile forming on his lips as he witnessed her eyes widening. Blackmail, of course....how could she have allowed this? Krul's heartbeat sped up as she thought of her next move. Instead, "You..." a weak response was muttered. Ferid stopped bending and winked at the small girl. "Please remember that if you ever think on reporting mr. Doji of my actions, you will be in trouble with the boss yourself. Think wisely! I love you Krul!" The man began to walk off slowly.

The pink haired queen stood there, completely tense. Her fists were clenched and she couldn't even begin to think how much she wanted Ferid Bathory dead right now. How did he find out? She hid her secrets rather well. How could he have found out? It was all so ridiculous. Ferid couldn't have stalked her, she would have noticed by now. Suddenly, "What was that all about? Krul Tepes?" a call from Nix snapped her out of her thoughts. The small girl turned around to meet her co-worker. "Nothing to worry about." She glared. Lest and mr. Parthe didn't seem too convinced as they noticed the look on the girl's face. From behind a corner, was a peering Ferid, he smiled devilishly. One step of his plan was working smoothly. How long will it take for her to realize that he was secretly plotting against her? To have her eliminated?   
~~~~~~~~~~  
As Krul was about to shut their office's door, the familiar hazel haired man stepped over in their direction. Urd Geales, one of Mr. Doji's secretaries. If he was here, their boss would need something, wouldn't he? The small girl looked up at him. "Mr. Geales." Krul started, her tense converting back to her normal state. No, she couldn't lash out at her superiors, let alone the boss. "Karr, Tepes, the boss would like to see you." He informed them in a monochrome tone. Lest's eyes dilated slightly. The boss would like to see them? My, It has been weeks since they haven't been called to his office. "What for?" Mr. Karr inquired, rising from his seat. Urd shifted slightly. "What do I know? Just don't keep him waiting." He responded sharply. Always so calm and serious, that was Shikama Doji's second secretary. 

When Lest joined Krul outside of their office, a head popped out from the wall. Addressing to the three workers, it chimed: "If you don't mind, I'd like to see the boss myself! I would be pleased to hear what he'd like to say." Of course, it's as the demon extraordinaire: Ferid Bathory. The first one to snap was Urd Geales. "We mind very much. Workers like you, mr. Bathory, should know their place." He denied his request. It earned a glare from Krul, a disgusted sneer from Lest and a pout from Ferid himself. "Awww, but why?" He questioned the obvious. He wasn't as high ranking as the two short individuals in front of him. Urd began to walk off, Lest and Krul following behind him. "Reel in your tongue." He demanded quietly before he continued leading the assigned workers towards the boss's office. Ferid only smirked, crossing his arms. "Ahah!" 

Urd knocked on the office door belonging to their boss. "Sir, I have brought Krul Tepes and Lest Karr. May I be dismissed?" He questioned, knocking a second time as a sign that he has arrived with the two. So many thoughts ran through the pink haired girl's mind. What could Shikama Doji wanted to talk about? Honestly, it would be something regarding their company but the possibilities were endless. A few minutes passed by before they received a response. "Yes, you are dismissed." Shikama answered through the door. Urd turned over to the two, he nodded hesitantly before leaving. He returned to his own office. Krul sighed, looking down at Lest's gloved palm touching the door handle. "Well?" She asked. Just open the door already. As if reading her mind, he opened it.   
Inside, he saw their boss smiling down on them as they entered his office and took a seat. "Please please, come in. It's nothing major." Shikama cooed. 

Being content on his seat and assuring that the door was nicely shut, Lest questioned: "What have you called us here for, today?" raising a brow slightly. Shikama exhaled, leaning back on his chair. "Ah you see, it's about the Amuspheres." He started. Well yeah, obviously it would be about the amuspheres. What else could it possibly be? Surely not the Nervegear. "We are very much aware of that, sir. Please, we beg your pardon but mind getting to the point?" The red and white haired man requested calmly. Instead of denying that or even scolding him for answering a man of riches with such a way, he scoffed. "Not a busy man I see, Karr. Very well. I have come to tell you that we are losing money. Many complaints have been filed for the past two weeks and well, customers have been demanding refunds." He explained the matter seriously. The two's eyes widened. This was bad. 

Lest stood up, slamming his fist down on their boss' desk. "What do you mean losing money? Isn't our product the finest treat?" He retorted, still being unable to believe what he just heard. Krul decided to join into the argument instead of staying silent most of the time. "Sir, so many customers have bought the amusphere the past month. I believe this information is false." She replied. However, Shikama shook his head. "Oh but it is not. What I'm saying, Miss Tepes, is the truth. If we don't act quickly, we'll fall out of business." Those words came crashing down in both of the workers' minds. Not one was able to speak for several minutes, possibly even more than ten. But Shikama couldn't blame them. No, no one could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Hiya! Author here with another chapter of 'Seraph Squads'! Alright now, this chapter was extremely painful to write since I'm such a newbie in business talk. I know I wrote a few things wrong about workplace but what can I say? Feel free to correct me in the comments. Now, my original idea was going to have Ferid annoy the third progenitors a bit more but just gave up on the idea since it'll take too long to write. I've already stalled enough on the first few paragraphs. Anyways, that's my author's note! The serious stuff is happening next chapter! *nudge nudge* *wink wink* Squad jam 3. However! I will make sure not to write it exactly the same as AGGO's Betrayers' Choice, oh no, it will be ENTIRELY different. Just you wait!


	4. Seraph Squads III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of the third Seraph Squads begins!

Today was the day that the long awaited: Seraph Squads 3 debuted. A competition only happening for the players on the Japanese server, what a treat! Two competitions have already gone by months ago and the powerhouse: KFLC participated in both, just not on the same team. In the first, Crowley and Krul managed to make good work out of their enemies and reached the top of the podium. That was also the start of the treacherous rivalry between the Shinoa squad and the pink bunny. In the second, it was a mere request from the eccentric man. He insisted on having Crowley on his time for this tourney so Krul had to find a teammate. That's when she contacted Lest to come and join her on: 'Seraph of the end'. At first, the boy wasn't too keen on the idea however by sheer luck, he was brought over. 

At the end of the second Seraph Squads, Krul had managed to beat Ferid with the help of her bombarding comrade: Lest and only gave the man ideas that all four of them should play on the same team for the first time. While waiting for the third Seraph Squads to happen, Lest was able to properly interact with both Ferid and Crolwey outside of work. The two adapted to the presence of a fourth member rather quickly and accepted him as a "Friend." It was a bad choice that Lest ever came into the game, now, Krul isn't the only one being bothered at work. How long has it been since they first started to hang out? Three months? Perhaps? 

Thanks to his decision, the entire server has referred to them as: "One of the powerhouses of SS." A powerhouse team meant a powerful team ready to cream all the other participants of the event. The principle viewing area for the incoming tournament would be the centre of the ruined city of Sanguinem. All huddled up in front of the large monitor, the spectators began to place their bets. "Do you really think that the Shinoa squad will pull off a win this time?" a man asked among his group of friends. Some came with the retort with: "No way dude, I'm voting for KFLC all the way." He received a response such as: "KFLC? What's that team?" Someone who clearly wasn't up to date, asked. The two other people in the conversation gave him wide eyes. "Didn't you hear? Krul's teaming up with Lest Karr and Ferid Bathory. That team will be brutal. But, they did register last minute so I'm still taking in the news." One of them was nice enough to explain. 

That's right, they entered last minute. Approximately, ten minutes before the administration offices closed. Krul being team captain for SS3, wanted the results of her teammates' participation earlier today. Ferid had already affirmed that he would be playing, Crowley didn't have much a choice. But Lest? He gave her his choice at around 11:49 in the freaking PM. "What do you mean you haven't made up your mind yet?! Well then! Decide!" was the scold that Krul would give him through the telephone when she returned back home from work yesterday. Unfortunately for her, she had to dive into 'Seraph of the end' and using her super inhuman speed, sprinted over towards the administration office to register her comrades' name and confirm their participation for SS3. What a handful.

"No way, I'm voting for those machine gunners this time around. If they worked on their teamwork, they can actually win." Another man brought up before taking a bite into his meaty appetizer. The people sitting beside him raised a brow. It seemed they weren't too familiar with the name: "Machine gun lovers"."Oh you mean Narumi's squad? Not too sure, man. I'm still putting my faith on the Shinoa squad and the Guren squad. They're both good." It was a boy with tattoos all over his face. Twenty minutes remaining until the events start. So far, only one of the powerhouse teams have showed up so far. It was a squad of four. A tall man with irresistible white braids as well as white angelic wings over a brown mantle, a brown skinned man with hazel hair, red eyes and a crimson red suit, a pale skinned man rivalling the fur of an artic fox, black hair locks and was clad in black. Finally, the newest recruit that no one remembered. A nervous middle-aged man with dark red hair, red eyes and indigo clothing. 

He looked down on his fingers nervously. "Um sir...I just thank you very much for letting me play on your team." He expressed his gratitude towards the captain of the team. His name was Siga Madu. This team was known as the: "Progenitors." The precious winners of SS2 but also known as: the cheating bastards who chickened out practically all match. Oh well, whatever those players remarked about them, they still won right? Siga chuckled, leaning back on his chair, they were situated in a private building near the city's centre. "Oh nonsense, Ky Luc. We're glad to have you. Just follow Urd's lead. I'm not too good with trainees." He laughed once more. When Ky glanced over to Urd, he was greeted with a cold expression on the other man's face. "I beg your pardon? Lord Geales?" He whispered. But Urd didn't say anything, just looked away. Rigr chuckled on his end, taking a sip out of his mug. "How lively."

A few more minutes passed, now more teams has entered. But, the only recognizable ones was the: 'Shinoa squad' meeting up with the 'Guren squad'. Team leader Shinoa met up with team leader Guren. The man extended his hand for the smaller girl to shake it, and so she did. "Lovely meeting you on the battlefield once again, Shinoa." Guren snickered. He seemed excited for their rematch and possible collision during SS3. One of the Machine gunners: Yuu, "Hey! Guren! We're gonna Kill you! So be careful!" Gave him this particular warning. The black haired boy's comrades behind him didn't seem too bothered to meet the other members of Guren's squad. "Still using the same guns as the last two games?" Goshi sprouted out, a hand in the air. The purple haired leader only smiled, "You bet." 

Finally, only with ten minutes left on the clock, two familiar shorties rushed in the central square. One of them had a black cloak with pink underlining to the back of her skirt. The other had a navy tophat. "Again, we arrived just on time." Krul blurted out, completely exhausted from all the running they had to do. She bent down, panting for air while her comrade just glanced over at her, unphased. "Relax Krul, we still have nine minutes left." The boy assured her. Minutes after their arrival, Ferid and Crowley walked in. The complete team earned the spectators' complete attention. "You've got to be kidding me.." one man muttered from the audience. Ferid shrugged, looking down slightly to face the semi-exhausted queen. "I don't know Krullie dear, I arrived just on time like you said. Hm, whose's fault was it again?" The silver haired man particularly turned over to Lest, who was fixing his gloves. 

The red and white haired boy sighed. "Alright alright, I'm sorry. But I insisted on turning in my report before I forgot." He explained. "It's not my fault that my tire broke down in the middle of the road. I had to walk home." He added. Just because he lived closer didn't mean that he would ever ask Ferid to drive him home. He didn't want to get too close to that mischievous silverlocked man as well as become all "buddy-buddy" with him. No, that was out of the question. Crowley didn't really know what to say much about the situation aside from remark a few things from his mind. "Let's put that aside for the moment, let's focus on our performances in today's tournament. We are known as one of the most strongest teams in 'Seraph of the end'. We need to please the crowds watching us in SS3." He told his three comrades. Krul bit her lip, Lest formed a small smile and Ferid, "I second that!" exclaimed like a small child. 

When the four-man team finished discussing, they were met with wide eyes from the spectators. "It's practically cheating to have all of you guys together!" A courageous player among the crowds expressed what everyone thought at the moment. But who could blame them? This team: KFLC was a combination of the winners of SS1 and the runners' up and third rank of SS2. Not to mention, three of the four carried photon swords and are quite decent with them. Especially Ferid and Crowley, people were aware that Ferid had one for his performance in the log cabin back in SS2. In Crowley's case, he only pulled it out in order to save his teammate from Krul's tiny bullets near the very end. "Oh is it now? I think it's pretty much allowed, yes." The demon extraordinaire pointed out, clapping his hands out of joy. 

Yet a voice from the participating teams was heard, "Wow, didn't think I'd ever see you guys team up all together." It belonged to a blonde, who was acting as the team's second attacker. He carried a Bizon gun and had quite good aim. His name was Mikaela Hyakuya. Krul and Ferid's eyes widened as they recognized the boy. He visited the Amusphere office a few times, he was good friends with both individuals, plus, he did help out a few times. Like help Lacus and Rene load amusphere packages onto the trucks despite only being a high-school student. Because of that, mr. Doji grew fond of him and even allowed the boy a free amusphere as thanks. "Oh my, Mika! How have you been?" Krul chimed, acting all motherly towards the boy like she always does in real life. Mika laughed. "I've been well, Krul." He replied politely. 

Ferid slipped in the conversation. "Mii-Mii-Mii~ka-chan!" His annoying sing song tone resonated through the halls. It only caused more spectators to glance over in his direction. Of course the man would be obnoxiously loud. Mika and Krul internally groaned, my god Ferid, shut up. "Hello Ferid." The blonde greeted calmly. It wasn't like Ferid was his favourite person in the world.   
In fact, he was more comfortable with Krul than that odd cheerful man. "It's been awhile since we last talked!" The silver haired man continued. Lest and Crowley only gave Mika concerned eyes. If you got into a conversation with Ferid, it literally never ends. But it seemed that Mika was well aware already. "Yes, I know. May the best team win." He told both the man and the woman in front of him, he gave them a light-hearted smile and wave before leaving off to his own team. The KTR-09 sighed dreamily, "He's such a well mannered boy. Makes me want to kill him!" He gleefully chimed. 

The sniper of the team turned over to the other powerhouse team. It was the "progenitors" team, the buff man noticed white angel-like wings sticking out through the crowds. How odd for a battlefield uniform, he thought. Unfortunately for him, the team leader: Siga Madu noticed his glance then walked over towards KFLC. "Sweet mother of god..."Lest grumbled, being overshadowed by the massive wings. Siga, being about 183cm tall, looked down on the two pipsqueaks of the team. "Look what do we have here." He calmly said. "Krul Tepes-sama and Lest Karr-sama right? Didn't get your names last time since my team ruthlessly took you out." Siga reminded.   
The progenitors was a team led by Siga Madu. Him and his comrades went defensive all match and the only kill they got the entire game was KL: Krul and Lest's duo. When those two killed off Ferid towards the end, the progenitors ditched their bikes and shot them from a stone wall. Completely unfair. 

Krul gave a nervous smile. "You don't need to be so formal, just Krul is fine." She politely informed him, yet she told him that there was no need to be formal. Siga laughed. "And so I heard, bunny queen. Good luck out there on the battlefield, hopefully you won't die in our hands again." He taunted with a wide grin. Lest growled slightly, that was not fair play. He had to try very hard to make sure he didn't fell in the progenitors' firefight once more. There was a slight silence between KFLC and the progenitors before Ferid arrived just on cue, in all of his might. "Ah don't worry about it! Mr. Wingman! My Krullie dear is very tough!" He assured the man with white braids. The small queen huffed, flinging her small wrist back to smack Ferid in the stomach. "Just who said I was yours?!" She complained. Siga laughed one more time before he left that team be. "Exact replicas of real life." He concluded quietly. 

Fifteen seconds left. The tournament was about to begin, the hype of SS3 will finally be open for everyone to enjoy. "Hey, I realized, we didn't come up with a strategy this time." Krul informed her teammates. Crowley, who held a mug full of caffeine in it, "Ah, you're telling us that now? Thought you were team leader." grinned slightly at her confusion. Ferid joined in, putting his own mug down.   
"Yeah Krul, that's your job." He cackled. The small queen blinked for a few seconds, taking in the oh so 'encouraging' comments from her teammates. Were they serious? Were they not going to reassure her 

Ten seconds left remaining, someone dressed in black and red approached Ferid's team. "I'm ready for the plan, how about you?" He called out to him. The silver hired man smiled relieved, "Ah good, you showed up after all." He remarked, clapping his hands. Crowley turned over to face the newcomer, not recognizing who he was. But it must be an acquaintance of Ferid or even friend. The sniper didn't know everything. The newcomer snickered at Ferid's remark. "Of course I would, you gave me something in return after all." He reminded. The pink bunny queen turned around from her spot, "Hey who's that-" she was cut off. For all the participants of SS3 were teleported away into the prep room.   
~~~~~~~~  
The prep room was the same as SS1 and SS2. A dark emotionless room, very dull actually. Aside from that, the room would be completely dark and the squad couldn't see each other if it weren't for the glowing white screen emitting a countdown in front of them. Krul opened her eyes, already seeing Lest beside her. Right, it was time to prep up. 

The small bunny queen waved her left hand, opening a game window visible only to herself. She took off the black cloak attached to her skirt and equipped her precious gun: The P90. Entirely coated in pink with a black magazine inside its chamber. She still had her trademark black knit hat and shirt dress. She opened up her pouches and loaded them with six magazines each. For the entirety of SS3, she had 400 bullets. It would he really bad if she used up all of those bullets for the tourney. She didn't have any spares. She looked over at Lest who finished at the same time as her. 

He had black clothing with a hint of indigo: a fancy suit and a tophat. One particularity in this team was that they were all wearing thigh high boots. Lest had two MGL-140's loaded with six grenades each in the rotary. He has a spare M&P pistol at his waist as well as a sharp bladed photon sword behind his back. "Krul, did you bring the extra plasma grenades?" The small boy asked. The pink haired girl adjusted her hair accessories so that her ponytails were neatly and tightly kept. She then turned over to the red and white haired boy, "Yes, I do. Oh wait, did you doubt me for a second, Karr?" She raised a brow before detaching three plasma grenades from her waist. She passed them over to the boy in need. Luckily, the boy caught it and attached it around his belt. "Perhaps. You're not exactly organized yourself, Krul." He remarked with a sneer. The pink bunny, "Speak for yourself." retorted in a fine manner. 

Ferid kept his usual attire on, a white uniform with gold specks on it. All he had to do was tighten his bow around his ponytail and reload his KTR-09 with a new magazine. For this tournament, he had 1000 bullets to spare. He also had an XDM pistol as a spare weapon, a breacher shotgun and a photon sword. Ferid was the one who was nicely weaponized between the four of them. "No arguing you two, you will be teamed for a good hour or two." He mentioned of the long awaited debut of KFLC. This would be the first big event that the four of them played together, let alone, the public gets to see their battles as well. If Lest and Krul started bickering in the prep room, what was the point of the squad spirit? "That means I can't exactly kill you too." Krul gritted her teeth, replying to Ferid. The silver haired man shook his head. "Fortunately." He laughs. 

Crowley equipped his main arm: the M14-EBR. As for his battle outfit, he wore the same white cloak with golden linings as Ferid did. Except, his didn't have a big red ribbon in the centre of his outfit like Ferid's. He had an HK47 as his side arm and like the two other boys in the team, had a photon sword and was practically a master at using it. He packed a pack of six plasma grenades in his massive backpack. When his preparation was finished, he walked over to where the three of his comrades stood. All of them were eager to go to battle. "Hey Krul, I just realized, you're the only one without a photon sword. You're kind of ruining a possible trademark for our team." The sniper laughed. The small bunny queen gave him curious eyes before the team's main attacker wondered: "Huh, I thought the same. Actually, I've tried to get her into buying one. A nice small pi~nk one! But she didn't seem to like the idea." The man responded. Crowley hummed. "Do you not?" He turned to the tiny queen. 

Krul thought for a second. "I've wielded one before, when I used to train with a player that I knew from ages ago. Long purple hair, a golden headdress and a long black and white dress. Never really knew their name for they left so soon." She mentioned. Both the sniper and KTR-09 were surprised by her small confession. So she did know how to use a sword huh? What's the big deal with carrying one around? That just meant an extra side arm, no biggie. "Why don't you get one then, if you know how to use one?" The silver haired man replied. The small bunny sighed, looking down on her P90. "I'm perfectly fine with my P90 and dagger." She dismissed his question. But who said the two were going to give up so easily? 

Ten seconds remaining for prep time. "Alright team! SS3 will be starting in several minutes! Is everyone ready?" Ferid called out to the rest of the members on his team. All gave approved nods with a loud: "Yeah!" It seemed KFLC was ready to start the tournament already. And so it did. "May the best team w-" the man was interrupted by their avatars turning into white pixels, they teleported off towards the battlefield. Krul gasped, feeling herself become blinded by the white light on her screen. The four players of KFLC were engulfed in code. SS3 was just beginning.   
~~~~~~~~  
"Just where in the heck are we?" Krul promptly opened her eyes at the sound of Lest's voice calling out to his comrades. But because of that, she didn't pay much attention to her surroundings. The small girl stumbled back upon taking in the sight in front of her. Empty roads but wooden houses with straw roofs by the sides. "Woah.." she rubbed her head, feeling slightly dazed just now. Crowle walked around, observing the place a bit more. Red-grey skies, podzol paths and a broken fountain made out of cement sits by the centre of their spawnpoint. "It seems to me that this is a village." He declared much to Lest and Krul's appreciation. Crowley was always good with navigation points, he was able to read maps easily and had good geography senses. 

Ferid clapped, taking in the sight as well. "Correction, dear Crowley. It's an abandoned village. There's no one around! Wonder if they got eaten by four horsemen of John or something..." Ferid brought up a morbid thought. Lest internally winced at that. An entire village getting eaten alive? No thanks. He stepped over to where Krul was currently sitting and extended his hand out. He had a smug grin on his face, which annoyed the living heck out of Krul, certainly. "It looks like you've fallen, my queen. Need a hand?" He stared deep into her crimson red eyes, absolutely stunning. He could almost see himself into them if it weren't for the hostility he spotted in them. Krul looked up at his hand before grabbing it. Sure, whatever. "I'm fine, Bathory." She hissed, slapping her hand into his the moment she got up. The man whined in pain, that was completely unnecessary. "Ouchie~" he blew on his injured palm. 

"Would you guys cut it out? Let's focus on fortifying this place in case we go under attack." Crowley crossed his arms impatiently. Lest could do the same if he weren't holding both of his MGL-140's. Just like Crowley, he was a serious one. Ferid and Krul looked over towards Crowley, nodding shortly. "Oh so we're that much of tryhards, are we now?" Ferid commented whilst chuckling. Crowley sighed, entering one of the buildings. He checked the place out, cobwebs in place, darkened rooms and it was pretty old. Definitely abandoned. "Not exactly tryhards. I just don't want us getting shot through the windows or anything like that." He affirmed, picking up planks that were left around the place. Krul and Lest looked at eachother before the latter shrugged. "Guess I'll help him while I'm here." The red and haired boy replied.   
~~~~~~~~~  
Towards the south-east of the map, a squadron of six spawned in a deserted forest. Not really a good area for camouflage since the team all had black and green attires except for one, he had white clothing. Laying behind massive rocks, the squad leader turned over to their comrade. "I figure we should move. We don't stand a chance with these clothes." Shinoa told Yoichi. The brown haired boy shrugged at his turn, he sighed and laid his head on the ground. "I don't know. But if you please it, we have cloaks in the inventory." He nervously informed her. The purple haired girl looked out through the binoculars she borrowed from Kimizuki, who was sitting behind one of the trees behind her. Yuu and Mika were right across from the tree the pink haired boy was by. As for Mitsuba, she was in front of the five members. She had binoculars of her own, so she looked out from her spot if there were any incoming teams. 

"Hold it off. I want to move anyways." Shinoa denied Yoichi's request. The brown haired boy nodded without any rebuttals. It was bad enough to argue against the team leader anyways. Yoichi was a well behaved boy, folwoeod orders and only fought when authorized to. Unlike another member here: "So early on? Shinoa? We just got here." Yuu retorted, raising his hands in exasperation. Mika crossed his arms, checking his surroundings. As if Kimizuki wasn't doing that at the moment. "I'd have to agree with Yuu-chan. We could just use Yoichi's cloaks and blend in the forest. It's not a bad start." The blonde voiced out his opinions. But Shinoa knew better. 

"That is entirely false. Spawning in the forest is the worst start. Even if we had cloaks on, we could still be spotted. Why, did you forgot that possibility was even possible?" She got on her knees and looked back at where Yuu and Mika were. The blonde gritted his teeth and shook his head. Nope, Yoichi was right. He couldn't argue back with Shinoa Hiiragi. Actually, Mikaela knew Shinoa and the others back in Highschool, he was introduced to them by Yuu-chan. So far, he's not entirely fond of them but has done some good amount of progress. There's times where Mikaela appreciated Shinoa's company. Still, the only one in which he's truly friendly with is Yuu. "When do we move then?" The black haired boy inquired, ready to move just by her gesture. 

"Next scan. Yes, my location will be displayed but if we move fast enough, we might fool teams." Shinoa explained, putting the binoculars' strap around her shoulder. She held her Vintorez tightly. That was her sniping weapon. She had a Thompson SMG as her main gun and a gigantic scythe she uses on emergency situations. 'Seraph of the end' was such a fantastic game in her opinion. Not only were there guns and felt like a regular but augmented shooters' game, there were weapons made from the fantasy world. Example, large Scythes, bows and an Ax. She managed to convince Mitsuba and Yoichi to wield those named weapons. Shinoa's squad is known as one of the squads that wield 'Cursed gear'. Basically what those do are to deal quite a lot of damage to players, depending on the type. Black demon series are generally the strongest ones and are mostly used close-range since most are sword-shaped. There are exceptions like Yoichi's bow, that is used for long-ranged sniping. Then there's Dakini, Mitsuba's ax falls in that category. A mid rage weapon like Shinoa's however, the blonde is able to block out enemies' attacks using magic-like defences. 

"Sure thing, we'll move in ten minutes in that case." Yoichi agreed with the purple haired girl's main idea for the tourney. Mika, however, sighed at the brown haired boy's comment. "Remember, ten minutes pass rather quickly, Yoichi." He reminded. "You just don't know it.". Just like that, the Shinoa squad are left in the forest, far away from the rest of the familiar powerhouse teams.   
~~~~~~~  
"Dammit." The black haired man protested after checking the form and types of territories forming the map for SS3. A girl with hazel coloured haired approached from, still staying low. Right now, Guren's squad were sheltered in an almost torn down farm at the north-west part of the battlefield. The barn itself was pretty big, however what awaited them outside was a pool of mud. Even under the scorching sun, the mud didn't dry up. It was obvious meat as an obstacle left by the ones in charge of building the map. "Damn." Guren sighed for the second time. It was then that his comrade got closer to where he was. "What's wrong? You've been saying nothing for the past two minutes. Did something happen?" Sayuri wondered, with a concerned expression. 

Guren shook his head, putting away the terminal scan in his left breast pocket where was pinned an emblem. "Nothing, nothing's wrong." He lied. Oh things were wrong in fact. If he told the rest of his comrades the plan he had in mind- or rather, the plans he was involved in by one of the other powerhouse teams, his own team wouldn't forgive him. Guren shouldn't be associated with another team however, he had no choice. Apparently, according to his client, this was for "the greater good." Taking down this catastrophic woman would help out of the society even more. Was that really so though? The man didn't know anything. "Well, any status reports from Shigure and Goshi?" He requested. Right, when they spawned, he immediately sent out those two members to go scout out the area in case there was a better hideout than this barn. 

Unfortunately, Sayuri shook her head. "None yet, sir. However, Mito had a few questions about SS3 and the main plan for our big success." The hazel haired girl informed him. The man glanced over towards the distance, thinking for mere moments before he turned back to Sayuri. "Where is she now?" He asked. Luckily for him, he received an answer rather quickly. "She is exploding the second floor of this barn." The woman told him, even daring to look up and hearing creaky footsteps from right above. Guren raised a brow. "I thought I told everyone they shouldn't explore the buildings of this map. They seem uneasy and are likely to collapse if too pressure is on it. I'll get her down. She might fall." The man growled and made his way towards the ladder. Sayuri gasped, rubbing the back of her head. "Apologies sir!" She called. She had failed at rounding up everyone and keeping them away from the barn in general. How embarrassing, did Guren think less of her now? 

Guren kept climbing up. He didn't mean to seem so...pissed against Sayuri just now. In fact, it was a common mistake. Sure, she was pretty excited and stressed over SS3 and it was no reason for him to get all upset about this. Besides, falling a few centimetres wasn't a big deal. He should apologize to her later. For now, he had bigger issues on his mind. The main one being: How was he going to meet up with Ferid Bathory without getting killed himself? This was SS3, a battlefield where no alliances were common. He growled to himself. Was this really a good choice? Was choosing to take down Krul Tepes a good choice? He didn't know. All he knew was to move forward. Hopefully everything turns out well in the end. Hopefully he meets up with Ferid and Crowley, safely. He arrived at the top, and spotted a woman with long red hair looking around. "Mito." Guren called.   
~~~~~~~  
Elsewhere, specifically on the South-West part of the map lies the 'progenitors'. Rigr was twirling his chains around his fingers, bored at the moment. He was sitting down on a wooden stump. Siga Madu has just found themselves in a forest clearing. Stumps were everywhere and there was even a rusty crane left there. Horrible for hiding places but what can they do? "We're definitely moving, right?" Rigr called out to the squad leader. Siga was on top of the crane, looking around to where the clearing ends. He couldn't see anything so far. This was bad. "Shut your mouth, Rigr." was Siga's response to his question. But the man didn't seem to mind otherwise, he only laughed and almost stumbled back from the way he was leaning. "Someone's snappy." He remarked. Urd silently growled at his comment. 

"Oh come now, brother. Why so hostile?" The man all dressed in black addressed to Urd. That's right, they were brothers in real life as well, the two didn't seem to mind when calling eachother by familial names such as "sibling" or "brother." But there was certainly a difference in personality. Urd Geales was always the tough and silent one, but had quite the talents in intelligence. The other half of the two brothers was Rigr Stafford. He was always goofing around most of the time out of boredom, nothing in life truly satisfied him. Not even this game nor his job! Which was surprising to say the least. "I'm not hostile." Urd replied quietly. That earned him another cackle from his brother. "You can't lie to me, you know?" He only said with a wide grin. All he received was silence as Urd walked off towards the crane to meet up with the squad leader. "Awww, shame really." The black haired man mouthed. 

The only ones left sitting by the stumps was of course the black haired man that seemed awfully amused right now and the newbie: Ky Luc. He nervously glanced around, perhaps already paranoid that someone would shoot them. After all, the 'progenitors' team was quite popular among the other players of SS. They were one of the powerhouse teams along with: KFLC, Shinoa's squad and Guren's squad. Ky Luc had an optical gun in his hands, apparently his team chose these guns over live ammunition ones. 

When he asked Siga Madu about it, "These guns? Why, they're unique of course. Everyone's going fur live ammunition, so why not prove everyone that optical guns could in fact kill." He earned that response, not to mention, along with a cheerful wink. The redhead didn't seem too sure if optical guns would be his favourite. But who does he know? He just joined 'Seraph of the end' several days ago after the request of the real-life counterpart of Siga Madu. He told himself he wouldn't get the amusphere for biased reasons but here he is now. 

"So I use those cylinder-like things to recover from a gunfight?" The newbie asked Rigr, who was sitting a few metres away from him. It seemed he was humming a lovely tune. He felt kind of bad for ruining the other man's moment. "Yes but only when you notice your hit points going below yellow." The man explained to him. Yes, Ky was given about medkits for the entirety of SS3. He internally winced. Even though they were stored away in his pockets, he felt like he shouldn't use them at all, for the fear of abusing its abilities.

"You'll be alright, don't worry about it." Rigr chuckled at the newbie's terrified state. What if he messed up and such? Then what? It would be simply unforgivable. Ky Luc exhaled. "If..you say so, sir." He replied reluctantly. 

From above the crane, Siga kept his guard up. He was rather vulnerable just standing there. Any sniper could just target him from here, heck, people could snipe without a bullet line. That was scary. From behind him, a hazel haired man climbed up the ladder from behind the crane itself. "Did you spot anything, boss?" He asked. Siga shook his head, squinting his eyes the minute Urd asked. "Not yet anyways, oh wait wait, I see something in the distance!" He chimed and stepped closer to the edge. Urd had to grab on his hand in case he fell off. Losing damage so early on would be humiliating. "Do you see players, perhaps?" The second in command wondered, squinting his own eyes on the same direction. Siga once more shook his head and hopped down on the crane, slapping Urd's hand away from his arm. "No no, an actual forest. It's best if we go there." He informed the man. Rigr and Ky Luc have wide eyes when he heard their squad leader's command. "The forest? But wouldn't your outfit be easily spotted?" Ky intervened. Siga shrugged. "Life is boring if you don't take risks, isn't that right? Rigr?" He laughed when he turned to the black-clad man. Rigr nodded. "Very much so, sir."   
~~~~~~~~  
Ten minutes had passed ever since they spawned in SS3's particular terrain. The progenitors spawned in a forest clearing, the Shinoa squad in an actual forest and the Guren squad in a smelly old farm. As for KFLC, being spawned in an abandoned village might have been a satisfactory start for SS3. However, the only one who wasn't too fond of the idea of staying here was Crowley, insisting on fortifying the place in case anyone tries anything. He had just finished covering the last window of the building they'd be staying in to form a plan. He and Krul walked out of the building. "So what do you think? Good enough?" The red and black haired man looked down at the small figure walking alongside him. To think, it brought back memories on when the two were teamed up in a duo by the orders of Ferid. 

"Why are you asking me? I'm no genius in architecture." Krul giggled, raising her arms in a shrugging posture. Crowley laughed as well when he finally reached the two others. "Just wondering, I wanted an opinion on the fortified house." He said. Ferid had overheard and turned away from Lest Karr. The silver haired man looked at the building closely. The straw roof was still the same however the windows were all boarded up, grenade traps were laying around as well as the door left completely open. "My my, you did a good job, Crowley~!" Ferid complimented. But the real question was why he put so much work in one house? They should be changing territories by now. "You're not telling us to plan out in that cramped dimmed out house right?" Lest sneered in disgust. To his surprise, Crowley shook his head. "You see, the fortifications is a trap." He revealed with a small smile. 

Krul's eyes widened. So Crowley was telling her that she put so much hard work into a house that they weren't even going to stay in for the entirety of even first twenty minutes of the tourney? "What? Then why-" her rant was cut short by Crowley's explanation. "Ever since SS1 and SS2, 'Seraph squads' in general grew immensely popular. So I'm guessing that many squads have entered this time." He started. But it didn't really explain anything, it only made the bunny queen even more confused. "So what?" She requested for further details. It only earned her a scolding from Lest. "Don't you get it? It means that there's a high chance that players spawned right near us." He explained the second half of Crowley's plan, already understanding it from the get-go. Krul raised a brow, looking over to Ferid to see if he understood himself. But all she received was a mocking grin from the man. Bah! Always so useless at the wrong times. 

"Alright, so what you're saying is?" She glanced back to both Lest and Crowley. There was a bit of silence before the buff man decided to finish his own explanations. "Then if my calculations are correct, people will be coming straight for us. Since we're a 'powerhouse' team. That house is merely a trap to keep them all together so we can kill them without going off in a roundoff all around town-" Crowley abruptly stopped at a numb pain in his shoulder. The buff man's eyes snapped completely open. Right on cue as well, his head twitched slightly before looking down on his shoulder. He didn't flinch nor wince, he expected this. There, right through in his shoulder, a bright red hole signifying that he had been sniped. Thank god it wasn't anywhere near the vitals. Whoever snipped him could have gone for a headshot. 'Definitely an amateur sniper.' Crowley concluded mentally. 

Just like that, KFLC's-more like Crowley's planned massacre was going underway. It would be four against possibly six. Lest looked up at the injured Crowley, "I hope you know what the hell you are doing." He gritted his teeth.   
The sniper sighed heavily. "I'll explain your positions, follow me behind this building before we get shot again." The sniper instructed to everyone before all four of them ran behind the booby-trapped house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Hiya! Author here and thank you for reading Seraph Squads chapter 4! My motivation to write this series has gone up again despite being in school, but hey. What can I say? We had just entered the SS3 Arc of the story. Though if you readers followed along the storyline attentively, SS3 is not actually betrayers' choice, that'll be SS4, nudge nudge, wink wink. SS3 will be a battle from the actual OnS. It will be the battle in Nagoya, hence, Ferid making a truce with both Guren and Crowley to take down Krul Tepes. Better yet, Lest will be involved in all of this! I'll try my best to write these gunfights but as you know, it requires a lot of thinking since...gunfights are gunfights. Complicated as heck to write. Anyways, that's my A/N written. Cya guys in the next chapter!


	5. The forests of SSIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KFLC’s first fight in the abandoned village is going underway! There are as well a few checkups on the other participating teams...

It was around 4:11PM when the enemy team staying by the same abandoned village as KFLC fled forward to enter it properly. Crowley, who was the nearest to peer in their surroundings, narrowed his eyebrows. "Well this is not good." he whispered quietly. Though, it was loud enough for the pink haired shirmp to hear since she was the one pressed on the wall right next to him. To her side and behind Crowley, were Lest and Ferid. "Hey, what's our situation? What are our positions?" The red and white haired bomber inquired, in a bit of a hurry. The sniper raised his hand out for the little pipsqueak to be a bit more quieter, it wasn't like the enemy team were literally two inches away from them. Crowley wasn't here to idle around and he didn't want the enemy team wanting to hear them in case they drastically closed the distance between them. 

"Ok, start talking Crowley~!" Ferid clapped his hands and walked a bit closer to the buff man. The sniper waited a few moments before he said: "Alright listen up because I'm only saying this once. Lest and I will act as backup. Since we can't fight in close-quarters, I'll leave you the intense battling to you guys, Ferid and Krul." He said. The first one to make a wide face was the pink bunny. "Me? With him? Oh you must be kidding." She glared at her partner. Ferid, who only gave a broad grin, tried his best to act hurt. "Oh but I'm so excited to be working with you, Krul! Give it a chance!" He beckoned the fierce but short bunny. 

Krul huffed at that response. Sure they worked with each other in the past however they have a...let's call it rivalry with each other? The pink bunny queen wasn't exactly sure how Ferid felt about her and oh boy, it was certain that it wasn't love, that's for sure. Even if Ferid did have any feelings for her, she'd turn him down with hesitation. Her and Ferid? Never, not even in eons. "Well whatever. As long as you don't slow me down Bathory. I have my P-Chan here and it's desperately in need for blood." She threatened, baring off her fangs. 

Lest sighed. "Quiet down quiet down. Let's just start already, that's what you want right, Crowley?" The braided boy raised his head to face the sniper. The man in front of all of them stayed silent for several minutes before raising his hand out. "For now, let's focus on taking this team down without much worry. Keep in mind we don't want to waste much time either." He told them. All three of the players on this team nodded to each other. With that, "Roger that! Good luck everyone!" They exchanged words and ran out of their hiding spot.   
~~~~~~~~  
As they closed in on the village, the enemy team that were previously hiding in bushes were now at the centre of town. Remarkable broken down houses belonging to one of a fairytale. The houses seemed so fragile, it looked like they had straw roofs. "According to the scan, KFLC would be here." The team leader said. Due to preparations for this plan, only the enemy team had the upper hand to check the scan. However what they didn't know was that team leader Krul's location on the terminal scan was false. 

It was marked down that she was last seen by the centre of town, which was where the broken down fountain was. But, that's not the case. When 4:10PM struck, she quickly rushed over towards the back of the fortified decoy house. "Alright sir, what's our first plan of attack?" a boy with soft blonde hair stepped to be beside his leader. In fact this team's weapons were quite organized. Three members had M16A4 assault riffles, one had an Enfield L39A1 sniper and the last member had a L86 LSW machine gun. The leader looked around, the village looked empty, no one was around. "Hmm.." he thought. Too quiet, way too quiet. What were KFLC planning?

"Lucas, follow me. As for the rest of you, check every building." The team leader who had short black hair and goggles attached on his head had claimed this enemy team's orders. Lucas, the one that looked like a rookie and had blonde hair, followed his leader calmly. "Y-Yes sir.." he mumbled. The team then all split after the orders were registered. 

Lucas and the team leader walked towards the fortified house. Upon seeing how it was completely wrapped up in traps and barricades up. "Why are we here, sir?" The blonde boy inquired and held his sniper tightly. The team leader inspected the house's door before turning towards the sniper wielder. "I believe they are hiding in here. What do you say we surprise attack them?" He suggests. Lucas nodded and smiled brightly. "Yes! That's a good idea! Let's do it!" He agreed without a doubt. 

Technically earning an approval from his comrade, he began to take the door down. "We've got KFLC cornered! They barricaded the windows therefore they can't escape! They'll just die here!" The team leader protested, his gloved palms ripping down the wooden planks covering the door. Lucas anxiously stood behind him, his eyes were fixed on the door. "Hup!" The door had fallen backwards. However, what surprised the two men was that no one was inside. 

The house was empty, all sombre and lonely. It was the perfect spot to hide too. The two men didn't understand why KFLC weren't there. "What the..." the team leader couldn't even form a complete sentence due to utter shock. "They...they.." Lucas too, was speechless on the emptiness of the fortified house.The two walked inside of the house, maybe they were just hiding behind some crates or something? It wasn't a bad idea to investigate. Wrong, it was a terrible idea. Suddenly, from behind them, the front door was on the verge of closing. 

The two men turned around immediately and their eyes widened when they realized who were the two figures standing above their own shadows. "Ah~! Hello there! Just dropping by!" The silver head demon exclaimed, waving both of his hands. After he waved, he placed one hand back on the door handle defensively. Lucas and the team leader were definitely freaked out. "Ah so it was a trap.." the team leader realized right away what KFLC's intentions were. But then again, spoken with much determination, "You won't get away with this." He clenched his canines. 

Ferid chuckled, swinging the door back and forth as if messing with the two players in the house. "Ah ah! But what if we already have?" He questioned back at the enemy team. However, the silver haired man couldn't enjoy his fun for much longer. Yet, the team leader was glad at the bunny queen's intervention. "Stop monologuing. Just kill them already." She huffed with much impatience. On second thought, the enemy team wasn't glad of that last part. Lucas blinked. "Hey now...we can maybe make a tru-" he was cut off by his leader. 

"Nonsense! We don't make truces with powerhouse teams." He insisted harshly. Hearing that, Ferid faked a frown and turned to Krul. "Aww did you hear that? They don't want a powerful powerhouse ally." He taunted the two players. Krul crossed her arms and sighed. "You know, if you put it that way, I'm disappointed as well. If they were our allies, I'd have others to talk to aside from you." She retorted calmly without any regret. Lucas and the team leader on the enemy side looked at each other before shrugging. Looks like they were dialoguing now. 

Ferid placed his free hand to his chest, approximately where his heart was, or near it. "I'm hurt Krullie dear! How could you say such mean things? Then again, you're team leader, so you shouldn't feel lonely! You have Lest and Crowley too, remember!" He reminded, albeit gleefully. Krul clicked her tongue in disgust. She didn't bother answering that one however if she could, she'd go along the lines of: "Lest and Crowley barely listen to me." Instead, she kept silence and just changed her glance towards the two enemies. Upon understanding his comrade's silence, Ferid clapped his hands. 

"Ah well, that's our cue. Have a good one and thank you for playing SS3!" He chimed one last time before throwing a plasma grenade down on the ground and shutting the door right after. Lucas and the team leader's eyes widened. "Why you arrogant little—!" The two of the enemies were engulfed in a pact of smoke before their avatars' bodies vanished into a cloud of pixels. Just by falling into a decoy like that, two players were eliminated. Four more players to go. 

Walking away from the blown up house, Krul was up front and had a serious look on her face was Ferid had a shrugging posture behind her. "That didn't end too well for them. You could have at least let me have my fun." He pouted at the short girl. But Krul shook her head. "Crowley gave us orders and it's best we follow them if we wanna play in the tournament for awhile longer." She claimed. The man chuckled at that and pursed his lips. "You forget too much, Krul. You're team leader, why listen to Crowley?" He inquired. 

The pink haired bunny queen kept walking, she almost stopped and she hated that. Why would she even think about stopping? Was she actually weaker than Ferid Bathory's taunts? "I well—" she stammered the first time, in desperate search for a reasonable response. Ferid gleamed his eyes over to his teammate, intrigued by her stammering. "They're good plans, I gotta hand it to him." She finished the topic right after. Ferid let out another chuckle, it was quieter this time. "Whatever you say, Krul." He added.   
~~~~~~~~~  
The two players arrived at the centre of town, they stopped by the water fountain. Krul sat on the contours of the build. It may not look ravishing to the eyes for there were cracks on the sides but it still sprouted water from the very top of the structure. Crowley noticed that so that's why the two were scheduled to take a break here. 

Water wouldn't exactly kill you in 'Seraph of the end' but it did lower your health depending on how much water was splashed on you. With a calm stream of water peacefully pouring down onto the basin, it wouldn't be enough to kill their enemies entirely. "I'm having so much fun, where are those three other players already, I'm getting awfully impatient." Ferid voiced out his thoughts. Taking the time to rest, Krul shrugged. "Use your eyes." She just said. The silver haired man did in fact take her advice and looked around. But he gave up in the first ten seconds. Not because he couldn't spot them in the distance, but rather because they were making their way straight for them. Ferid ran behind Krul, "Oh dear oh dear me." He chuckled. 

Three players all with assault riffles shot in their direction. "You killed our leader!" One raged, still holding down on the trigger. "You'll pay for this!" Another yelled right after. The distance between the five players were around 2 metres. They were sure closing the distance between them and KFLC rather quickly. Run anymore and they might actually get critical hits. Krul, didn't seem to change her mood a single bit, she stared at the pathetic fools who ran straight forward. 'Not even looking out for snipers.' She thought in disgust and mere disappointment. 

She stood up and held her precious P-Chan tightly. Upon noticing that Krul was still in front of him, Ferid couldn't help but laugh. "It's really kind that you're my shield for this one. Frankly, I appreciate it." He thanked the pink bunny and watched how the three players got even closer. Krul shook her head and prepared to aim at her target. "I'm not your shield, you're incorrect. I just happen to be here and you happen to be there." She replied without much thought. "*Pon pon*" her pink P90 went off. 

Her target wasn't the three players actually. On the other hand, her muzzle was facing straight up at the sky and her shits were fired in the clear blue above them. The three players halted upon realizing her move. Unlike their leader who took some time to realize they fell in a trap, the three players knew this was a signal to something. "Keep your eyes peeled." The one running in the middle cane to a halt when the three were right in front of the two other players. 

Without another word from the enemy, two grenades came crashing down on the fountain's water distribution. Its peace being interrupted, water squirted everywhere. "Ahhh!" The three players yelped before they were completing doused in the fountain's water. So much stained their clothes, forcing them out of the game, it was almost comparable to a tsunami. Not only that but if they didn't die from the water, two bombs would have done the trick. Three 'DEAD' markers lit up above the wet corpses. Krul and Ferid stared down at them indifferently.   
~~~~~~~~~~~  
"That was cruel." Ferid remarked with a grin. Despite being apart of the team that just killed these poor three men, he was still smiling. Krul shook off some water droplets that managed to fall atop her black skirt. She clicked her tongue in frustration. Great, now her health bar was lowered to 80 percent. However she couldn't whine, Ferid had it way worse. His health was down to 70. Then again, it was the stupid fool's fault for not moving. 

"Thanks for the backup Lest!" Krul's eyes glanced upwards to face the small boy hiding on atop of a house's rooftop. Lest was refiling one of his MGL-140's rotaries. For two bombs, he only needed to use one out of his dual weapons. "Yeah yeah whatever, good job to you guys for not dying." Lest replied, cold as ever. Ferid looked up too, "But we still got wet, did you?" He asked politely. The small boy shook his head. "No I did not. Since unlike the both of you, I moved." He said. Krul crossed her arms before turning around to observe the abandoned village or the fountain specifically. "How could we? It was a sacrifice let's say! If we moved, then there might be a chance that the enemies survived that!" She exclaimed. 

Lest shrugged and stayed on top. Whatever happens, Crowley ordered him earlier to stay on top of the rooftop to act as backup and to generally protect himself from gunshots. "With two bombs hitting a water source? I don't think so." He replied. The pink haired bunny looked around, there was one person left and their massacre would be over. They did good work so far and she couldn't be any prouder. "4:08 now." Lest informed her as if he read her mind. Krul was actually about to glance down at her wristwatch. She nodded with a smile. "Thanks, that's good. Now, do you spot the last person?" She inquired to Lest, who had a good viewing advantage. 

The boy began searching around the village from his point of view. But, he replied back to her unsuccessful. "I'm sorry no, I didn't find anyone." He told Krul apologetically. Krul blinked at that response. Wow, were they actually not exchanging harsh responses for once? Was this a normal conversation between comrades and maybe friends? Ferid looked around too, still smiling. "It's gonna be bad if we don't find him! We have to look!" He reminded a bit too excitingly. Though, the three were stopped in their tracks when Crowley's voice came on the communicators.   
~~~~~~~~~~  
"Stop, no need. I found him." He reported to his three comrades. Ferid was the first to react. "Did you now? Bravo!" He remarked happily. Then it was Krul, "Huh? Really? Where are they?" She inquired like any other player would ask. Finally, there was Lest who inquired: "Alright, good. What do we do? Just tell us." He was the one who requested orders on how to act.   
Good team behaviours came out from the two shrimps. As for Ferid, no one wants to hear possible sarcastic remarks. 

Crowley, who was several metres away from his team, reloaded his sniper then peeked in his scope. "Don't panic and don't move. The last player is 1 metre away from you, Krul." He told the pink rabbit calmly. But Krul was anything but calm. There was a literal machine gunner behind her, ready to create holes in her back. "Then we must attack at once." Lest brought up quietly. Crowley shook his head at that then said: "Actually, I'd like the kill, if you please." He requested. 

Krul bit her lips in panic, she stared at Ferid and stood completely still. "Yeah sure sure...just make it quick." She trailed off her voice, showing her stress. Crowley nodded at he command, she was still leader after. He aimed his scope just right before squeezing the trigger. 

Ferid, who spotted the man from where he was, waved at him. "Oh hi there!" He called out to the last remaining member on the enemy team. The machine gunner player, taken aback by Ferid's greeting, put his weapon down and waved back at him. "Oh hi." He called back, albeit not as enthusiastic as the silver haired man. "Enjoying SS3? We may be beating you but don't worry, you'll get better soon!" He cheered for his enemy. Surprised by such encouraging words, the man smiled back. "You really think so? But I'm not a good player." He admitted. 

Ferid scoffed. "Did you think we were good players too at the start? For example, Krul, she was just way too adorable at the start. Using optical guns and-" he was interrupted by a grunt escaping his lips. When he grasped his leg leg, he noticed the pink haired girl standing there in anger. It seemed she kicked it. "Ouch.." he muttered happily. But Krul was not at all happy. "Watch what you say about me." She growled. Lest rolled his eyes at what was currently going on between his two comrades. 

The banter between Krul and Ferid continued until the machine gunner noticed: "You two seem close." The two stopped talking and just took a second to acknowledge that Krul was going to come for him in a few minutes. Her close with Ferid? As if. "Apparently." Lest added with a neutral tone. The machine gunner shrugged and stared back at the two players metres away. Ferid sighed and shrugged afterwards. "Well, we're going to go now. Besides your time in SS3 expired. Hope to see you in the next one! Oh and piece of advice, never let go your weapon. They might actually save your life!" He told the machine gunner before cocking his head to the side. 

A sniper bullet shot past his hair by a hair's length and he was honestly thankful that he dodged in time, or else his cheek would have been pierced through entirely. Not a minor injury there. As the bullet flew past Ferid, it hit the machine gunner pile through the forehead. Krul blinked, not realizing the speed of Crowley's bullet. "Dang." She muttered in amazement when she turned around to notice a 'DEAD' marker above the man Ferid was talking to seconds ago. Speaking of Ferid, he sighed again. "Shame he couldn't use my advice earlier, he's dead now." He said disappointedly.   
~~~~~~~~~  
"Damn dude. That team is brutal." One spectator that was sitting near the screen had mentioned to his comrades that were sitting beside him. The two other boys that were actually real life gun users in real life nodded along their friend. "Well yeah obviously. They're composed of 'Seraph of the end's possible best players. Why wouldn't they be good?" One friend said the following. 

The player who said the first remark shrugged himself and kept watching the future battles unfold. "I don't know man. But I'm scared to meet them now." He admitted embarrassingly. His two friends chuckled in amusement before drinking down their beverages. "Don't be dude, I'm sure they'll be unequipped when we do get the chance to meet them." He said.   
~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Well that's a wrap." Lest hopped down from his post and joined up with the two others and Crowley who was currently climbing down from a house's rooftop. "Yeah I'm impressed with all of you, actually. We did well." Krul nodded at what Lest had just said. Ten minutes now, a battle in ten minutes. How was that even possible? It just shows that powerhouse teams were capable of anything. 

When the sniper joined up with the others, he looked down at the shrimps. "Alright, I say it's time we leave this village. Though to where, exactly?" He asked everyone. But no one dared to respond so the last option or resort, per say, was the one clad in black. Krul Tepes, the bunny queen and the team's leader. All eyes fell on Krul. She sighed in exasperation. "Aww but why me? Why can't Crowley just take over the entire event?" She asked. Crowley shrugged and didn't seem too offended nor proud of the idea that Krul enjoyed his thinking. But, fair was fair. 

"I wouldn't mind helping you think of battle techniques and team strategies but you'll still be KFLC's original and permanent team leader." He smiled to her. Krul's eyes widened slightly upon noticing Crowley's look. She turned around to face the two other boys, hoping to give her that same reassuring look. Lest was close, he had a neutral mood and Ferid was just disappointing as always. He stood there with a mocking smirk. Krul sighed and shut her eyes. "Yeah Krul, you're team leader. Don't rely on Crosley for everything." Ferid taunted. 

"Shut your mouth." The pink haired girl demanded from him. The silver haired man obeyed and even chuckled a little, that gave him a confused look from Lest and an amused one from the sniper himself. When Krul reopened her eyes, she looked ready. She looked like she was ready to operate as an actual team leader now. Ready to give orders and not fail her team. "Alright, we'll be heading south." She spoke her plan out to the rest of her team. Without much objections, "Roger that!" was heard from all three of them.  
It was now 4:11PM.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The black haired team leader of the Guren's squad, stared down at his wristwatch. His eyes narrowed at the change of time, "4:11 and according to the scan, a team has been wiped out by the city area." He told his comrades, who were carefully huddled beside him. Sayuri was the first one to respond to that, she peered over at the terminal in Guren's hands. "I believe that's a village, Guren." She corrected calmly. Goshi, who was sitting on a hay bale, simply shrugged. "Village or not, we don't care. What's important is that this was a one sided massacre. Frankly, I'm impressed." He added with pure sincerity. The red haired girl between Sayuri and Goshi stood up abruptly. "Come on, we can do much better." Her grey eyes flared up. 

Guren tapped on the surviving dot in the centre of the village area. "Hm.." he let out a sigh and a clear sign of deep thinking when he realized which team was responsible for the newest elimination. It was KFLC, naturally. Why wasn't he surprised? That team is brutal therefore he had to be careful when crossing paths with them. However, not this tournament, not this one, no. Him and his team didn't have to worry getting slaughtered by KFLC. "That's KFLC, right? Eep, I don't want to get on their bad side." Sayuri mentioned, her expression turning into a concerned one at the sight of KFLC's surviving dot. Shigure, who noticed Guren's struggle to calm everyone down, sighed. "Don't worry Sayuri, it's not like they're totally unstoppable. They just defeated 6 players in 10 minutes." She said. 

Sayuri raised her hands up to her cheeks. "That's still saying something!" She exclaimed to both Shigure and Guren. The team leader sighed at his turn and only faced Sayuri with an unconcerned expression. It seemed like he had a plan and Shigure could tell almost immediately. When their team leader decides not to say anything, it means that he was in the process of thinking of a good plan or their team. "You have a plan, right Guren?" The short blue haired girl made sure that her theories were correct. But then Guren said: "Eh, plan? No, I was thinking about what to have for supper." He told Shigure. Sayuri and Shigure's eyes both widened. "Eh?!! We're gonna die!!" They both screeched. Well, this was it, this was gonna be their demise. They would die in the hands of KFLC. However, Guren sighed, smiling in amusement when the reactions came out. "I'm kidding, I do have a plan. We'll make our way south. We'll see if we can catch up to KFLC." He ordered. 

Mito prepared to climb down the ladder of the barn. Currently, Guren Squad were at the highest floor of the smelly barn. To assure that other players in the vicinities couldn't shoot through the arc-shaped entrance of the red painted building. "Are you suggesting we fight KFLC?" The red haired girl questioned Guren's decisions. Fighting KFLC head-on didn't seem like a good idea in her eyes. Having being beaten by Krul and Crowley in SS1 then by Ferid alone in SS2 was concerning. Yet they were 6 players. The team leader followed her and gestured everyone else to follow him. "I'm not saying that exactly. But you're close." He told Mito. As the six players of Guren squad prepared to leave the barn, Mito still had no idea where she was off in her suggestion.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"And that's the last one dead." A boy holding a bow 'cursed gear' spoke over the communicator. He sat atop a tree and was accompanied by another boy with pink hair this time. He had twin blades that fell under the category of: 'cursed gear' too. Below them and hiding behind a massive rock, was a dead corpse with the 'DEAD' marker above their chest. It was clear that the user with the bow and arrows was the one responsible for this player's elimination. A few metres below and farther from them, another voice was heard on the communicators. "Report." The purple haired girl ordered the two players atop the trees to repeat their report and their current situation. 

"Like Yoichi just said, Shinoa. All four players from that squad are dead." Kimizuki, the boy with the twin blades, explained calmly and began climbing down the tree. It was rather fuzzy there with all of those leaves settling down on his pants, it was surely uncomfortable. Yoichi began to follow him down as well. "Well that's good. We meet where I am." Shinoa said to the two boys. However, before Kimizuki fully allowed himself to make his way towards Shinoa, "Are you sure it's safe there?" He questioned. The two boys started to speed walk towards the location that a Shinoa told them earlier. It was behind three big rocks and the possibility of being spotted hit 10%. When they would be done assaulting the squad that recklessly shot in these forests, the two would have to meet up with the rest of the team there. 

"It's safe trust me." Shinoa replied over the communicator before her hand was placed on the 'Off' button. She sighed and glanced up at the sky. "Over and out." She told the two boys over the radio line. Kimizuki and Yoichi nodded. It wasn't like they were completely in a screwed up situation. Yuuichiro, Mikaela and Mitsuba were still on the other lines. Plus, they were the closest to Shinoa so if the two spotted more enemies, they could just tell one of the three and Shinoa will be aware. Meanwhile, Shinoa leaned back on the giant rock.   
There was a pestering ruckus beside her and her ears couldn't take it anymore. Yuu and Mika were talking a bit too loudly. "Hey Mika! Do you have any ammo? I don't have anymore.." Yuu whined. 

The blonde sighed for what, the umpteenth time? "I already told you, if I give you anymore, then I will run out myself." He took a pause to mention another fact. "Besides, I gave you some in between the battle we just had. Did you seriously waste them all?" Mika didn't seem impressed with the black haired boy. Yuu shrugged, well he would have nodded but he knew that Mika would be completely done with him. "Well no but actually yeah." He gave a big smile, in hopes that his friend might give him more ammo for his gun. But like expected, Mika scooted away from him. "No, ask Mitsuba." With those cold words, he stopped speaking with the black haired boy. Yuu was left with empty magazines, he grumbled sadly. "Awww man.". Quietly, watching how the banter between the two ended, Shinoa gave a light-hearted laugh.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Siga Madu stared up at the skies. He had a big smile on his face as his hands were stretched out, as if almost ready to grasp the sun over to him. "It's such a beautiful day to compete, don't you think Urd?" He questioned the man dressed in a white shirt with a black vest over it. It was a bullet proof vest as well so he didn't have to worry too much getting hit. Calmly, Urd replied: "Yes, I agree." No smile nor frowns were seen on his lips. He was completely indifferent to all of this. "It's sad how we didn't encounter anyone yet." Siga brought up, there after minutes of smiling, a disappointed look was seen. 

Though, Ky Luc interjected. "To be blunt my leader, I'm perfectly fine with not encountering anyone for the entire tournament." Sitting on a chopped off log, Ky said. Siga Madu shrugged. "Ah yeah, but that's boring. The point of SS is to fight and get better in gun battles!" He addressed to the unenthusiastic newbie of the progenitors, who was currently quaking under his boots. Ky Luc gulped. "I'll try my hardest to impress you then." He muttered just loud enough for his team leader to hear. Siga lowered his head with a grin. "Please try your hardest." He responded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Hiya! Author here and thank you for reading chapter 5 of Seraph squads! Now usually I'd end the author's note here however I have a little storytime. So yesterday I got a new phone and synced it with my iPad. Then, all my notes that were on my iPad got transferred to my phone. I didn't want to have all these notes on my phone since storage reasons so I deleted them off my phone. Biggest mistake ever because when I checked the notes on my iPad, they were all gone. I didn't remember what were those 52 notes in whole but I know it was important notes, OTP oneshots, my list of OCS so far and chapter drafts. Yeah everything was gone and I just feel, really disappointed. However, as for SS, it's an advantage since I can rewrite those gun fight scenes and have fun by adding or removing things from the draft and the rewrite. Now because I remember what happened in the old draft, I'll point out the differences between the deleted draft and this version of the chapter. 
> 
> Keep in mind that in the original, I haven't gotten around to writing the checkups between the Guren Squad, Shinoa Squad and Progenitors. 
> 
> 1\. In the original, Crowley doesn't mention that Lest will be acting as backup. He just says that Ferid and Krul will be teamed up for this battle. 
> 
> 2\. In the rewrite, Ferid taunted Lucas and the team leader more than what was originally planned, which would have made Krul's scoldings last only 1 phrase compared to 1 whole paragraph. 
> 
> 3\. Adding to that, originally, Lucas didn't have a name and was known as: "the blonde boy" or "rookie". 
> 
> 4\. During the water fountain attack and Lest's debut, Ferid originally shields Krul from the water. In the rewrite, he runs behind her to shield himself. 
> 
> 5\. In the rewrite, Lest and Krul had less interactions than in the original. The two were also more friendlier with eachother during that interaction. 
> 
> 6\. The spectators were gonna have a scene to describe how they feel about the murderous KFLC for each part during battle. There would have had 3 scenes(the fortified house scene with Ferid and Krul, the fountain attack and the end of battle.) But in the rewrite, the spectators only appeared at the end of the massacre. 
> 
> And that's about it! What did you think? What did you wanted to be kept in? Let me know and I'll cya you all later! Cya cya!


	6. Don’t provoke me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Shinoa squad get surrounded by the Narumi squad

When they finally reached a calm-looking forest further south, the first thing the team leader instructed to her team was to position Ferid and Crowley as snipers. With her and Lest not having any long-ranged weapons with as much precision as snipers, the both of them were behind the two boys and looked out most of the time. The silver haired man, whose stomach was laid down on a massive flat rock, yawned when he didn't spot a single enemy in the last 5 minutes they arrived here. 

"Are you sure going south was a great idea, Krullie? I'm getting really impatient here. Might doze off any moment now!" With a thrilled tone, Ferid chirped and peaked through his scope once more. At any time, he could be contradicted. It's best if that didn't happen while barking back against Krul of course. The pink haired leader was viewing their green-coloured surroundings with a pair of binoculars. So many trees, she couldn't branch out the entire zone. Which was a considerably bad thing for a game like 'Seraph of the end', or any battle royale in general. 

"Shut up and focus. What are the chances that we get attacked right about now?" The pink bunny questioned to her three comrades, still not losing focus one single bit. Lest rolled his eyes as he took in the chatter between the other individuals teamed up with him. Sometimes it was just too noisy and the boy didn't quite adore that. "I don't know, we might. That's why Ferid, you shouldn't really make a sound and just keep a lookout." Crowley intervened, changing the render distance of his scoped weapon. He adjusted it for it to be able to zoom into the leaves. In search for any enemies camouflaged or not. Krul sighed and turned her back to focus on patrolling. This was going to be a long period of time if no one will show up to surprise KFLC. 

"Awww you're not fun, Crowley!" He jabbed at the taller man. Having the proper training to endure idiots like this silver haired demon, the sniper ignored Ferid mercilessly. It wasn't like he wanted to even talk to the man at the moment. His opinions about him were still scattered. He still considered him a friend, however a messed up friend. After hearing about his loathing state for Krul Tepes, Crowley pities the surprise Krul herself will be in in mere moments. He wishes to prolong the tournament so that the small queen doesn't have to be hit by the bullets of betrayal. 

"I still can't believe we pulled off that stunt in that abandoned village." Ferid chuckled, forgetting the subject completely. It surprised Lest and Crowley that's for sure, that he was able to forget such a topic. Still, some may believe that Ferid felt slight offence to being flat out ignored at, but people like Krul and Lest couldn't care less about how the man felt. He was an annoying blabbermouth, his stamina to talk almost resembling the ungrateful movements of a fish without water, yeah nobody likes them. 

"It's thanks to Crowley we even got a chance to win that battle." Lest crossed his arms in satisfaction. With all the bored chatter the four members were having, they were surprised that no one decided to ambush them just yet. Upon hearing the younger boy's response, Crowley let out a mockingly puff. "Pfft, me? I just use my logic for a second." He dismissed the sudden unnecessary praise he'd just received. Some could say that they were satisfied with their response, however, "So you think it was logical to have me and Ferid teamed together?" Krul haloed at Crowley. 

The man shrugged and coding help but laugh slightly at her concern. "Well maybe it is." He answered back. Krul sighed and refrained herself from straight-up assaulting the sniper's cheeks herself. If she did that, the grass beneath them would surely cause a ruffle and second of all, the procedure and aftermath of the punch. When Krul will punch him, her first making contact with his sturdy skin will make a loud thud. As for the initial reactions to pain, Crowley would have no choice but to grunt. "You're such a pain.." she crossed her arms herself in slight disappointment that she couldn't really hurt the man that pissed her off just now.  
~~~~~~~~~~  
The Shinoa squad was finally leaving the forests and were faced to faced with ruined constructions, so much dust everywhere. The skies were red as ever, not showing any sights of happiness at all in this dull aggressive world. Mitsuba took a step back upon seeing the cracked streets and dirty roads. "Yuck, I prefer the forest, thank you very much." She slid her gloved fingers along her axe's side. But despite the awful view, Shinoa was still on guard. "Alright team, we just arrived in our new territory. I say we find shelter as soon as possible. Yuu, how much time until scan?" The team leader asked. 

The team carefully walked from building to building, trying not to expose themselves too much. They were now behind a single building whose alleyway led straight to some open space. The open space was not at all conviennent for the uniforms they chose, but Shinoa and Yuu thought that the uniforms are quiet conviennent. Sure they're black with flashy green on them but it shows their connections with the Guren Squad. They had green and they had red. "10 minutes left, Shinoa!" Yuu told his team leader while staying put to the ground. Shinoa exhaled. "Alright, that's good.." she mumbled. 

Everyone was now checking their cursed gear, whether some bullets managed to scrape the tips or something like that. Yoichi's bow was fine, just a bit soggy from dipping it in mud unwillingly. Kimizuki's twin blades were fine too, a bit scratched but that's due to past battles. Mitsuba's axe was untouched but Shinoa's scythe needed repairing. As for the two last members, Yuuichiro's sword was heavily damaged that's why Shinoa insisted on him being a temporary sniper until he can afford a new sword and Mikaela agreed to become a sniper alongside Yuu, both of their swords are damaged. "Okay report." Shinoa asked everyone in her team. It was now 4:22. 

Yoichi was up a ladder since Shinoa insisted he should be checking the top for any enemy teams ahead or behind. "No one." the young vivid boy responded, gesturing to come back down but Yuu shook his head. "No don't, I think it's best if you stayed up there, just in case anyone tried anything funny." He reasoned. The brown haired boy accepted the request and the purple haired player moved on to the vanguard, it was Mitsuba and Kimizuki together. "So, you two, anything?" She stepped over to check for any observations. Mika, who was with Yuu in the front, turned around and watched as his team leader was gathering information. "Nope, nothing-" Kimizuki started. But Mika's blue eyes widened. "Hold it." 

Shinoa and the two others all turned their heads quickly and let Mika point out what's wrong. He sighed and looked down at his cracked red blade, he frowned a little, knowing that this would be the last time he would use it. He held the tip and made sure the sword wasn't slipping out. "Look." He said and with one swift moment, he swung the sword. Since Mika's sword was enchanted by some spells he found on missions, he managed to enchant his photon sword. Wind obeying to his commands, flew along the movement and completely brushed away the leaves of a nearby bush. "No way..." mumbled an unfamiliar voice. But that's when the Shinoa squad noticed. 

"Dammit, what do we do?" A boy with messy brown hair back away from the completely naked bush, he refilled his ASG Steyr AUG A2. He seemed to be the team leader of this team called "the Narumi Squad". This guy was Makoto Narumi, a participant from SS2. "Don't know, just avoid their bullets." A girl with blonde hair blew bubblegum, that was Rika Inoue. There were other men in the background including a timid girl, she fixed her glasses and looked up at Narumi. "Um...that's a really powerful sword.." Yayoi sheepishly mentioned. Narumi nodded, fire sprouting from his eyes. 

Mika frantically looked around for something to cover the entrance of the alleyway with, until his eyes landed on a few cardboard and trash cans. "Everyone! Cover the entrance!" He claimed and immediately ran for the objects he spotted. Shinoa nodded and gestured Yuu to help the blonde. Yoichi jumped down from the ladder and placed his bow on the strap, they were under attack and it seems that the Narumi squad was intending to shoot directly at them.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Lord Kureto," panted a delicate young woman who carried around a katana scabbard. She had purple eyes, golden blonde hair tied up in a single side ponytail and a firm look on her face. She was as tired as the day as her and her partner Kureto were walking up a rocky cliff for minutes now, she was practically exhausted. "Where are we going?" She wondered. 

It was not at all normal that they were walking for the past minutes ever since they spawned in an abandoned beach. Getting tired of the sand getting in their boots, Kureto, in which is the team leader, searched for the most satisfactory of mountains before giving out his orders. Aoi remembered them, "We need to reach the top, I need to show you something." She recalled him saying earlier. But this was absolutely ridiculous, Aoi was fierce but she wasn't about to treat this game as if her life really depended on it. She was working nrmslly at her desk before her boss Kureto Hiragi asked if she could dive into 'Seraph of the End' for a "business discussion." 

Here they were now, at the top of the mountain but Aoi kept pacing, "Will you finally tell me what's that master plan of yours?" She asked. It was their first time registering into an SS and Kureto didn't even bother taking his beloved JG204 sub machine gun yet. Instead, he inhales the deep warm summer sun and exhaled. He stretched a bit before he peered at the very edge of the mountain. Then, he took out his small little scope, Aoi gave him a disappointed look. "So we travelled all the way up here just for you to spy on from a high advantage? You could have climbed a tree."   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The terminal scan beeped once, Siga grew wide eyes. "So KFLC annihilated that squad who were near the abandoned village. That's pretty interesting coming from my workers." He remarked. His two other comrades who were all sitting on half cut tree trunks, tilted their heads at their team leader's comment.   
"They managed to get a kill already? Wow~!" Rigr chuckled, presumingly proud for the lower ranking workers back in the Amusphere building. However, when being assigned to a certain faction, Krul and Lest were given to Urd Geales. As for Ferid, It was Rigr's sole worker under his faction along with distant Crowley. The black haired man shifted over to watch in the corner of his eyes, that his blonde haired brother looked away immediately. So he had been listening? 

"How did you know that Lest Karr-sama and Krul Tepes-sama were in fact your workers?" Ky Luc brought up the subject mainly because he had noticed that Rigr was gonna bother his boss. Rigr and Urd faced Ky before they turned over to Siga Madu, he's the one the question was addressed to after all. Siga laughed and twirled his long white hair with his fingers, "It's not convenient at all for them to use their real names. Second, they just act exactly like themselves." He mentioned. Urd rolled his eyes, he barely smiled throughout the competition, instead, he looked down at his gun before requesting their next move. Were they going to move away from their current environment? 

It was now 4:22PM and they still have not moved from their forest clearing despite Siga finding a forest up ahead. Alright, now they should really refine themselves in the forests. The team leader glanced down at his terminal scan, there about a few metres lower than them was KFLC's dot. He smiled a bit before lifting his head back up, "What do you guys say we go after Krul's team?" He suggested. The three other men shrugged although they did each say something. "I don't mind, your call boss." Urd said. "I'd love to see if Ferid improved from the last time I saw that boy!" Rigr happily chimed and alas, "As long as we play it safe." Ky timidly admitted. Siga clapped his hands and stumbled off the crane, Urd'd eyes widened. "Siga Madu-" 

However, his massive wings caught him in his fall and he fluttered down to safety, he gave a confused squint before he noticed Urd's face. "Ahaha! Look at your face! I'm perfectly fine!" He laughed and clapped his hands in amusement. Ky sighed in relief too, watching his boss fall from a fall that would kill him completely. But he was reminded of the fact that Siga purchased wings. "They may be revealing but hell do they save you from accidents like these." He empathized the word "accident". Urd and Rigr narrowed their eyebrows. "Anyways, let's get a move on then," Ky suggested. They were about to set off towards the forests until a gunshot was heard not too far away. Siga swung his head, "Oh?" He curiously said. 

Urd pulled out the terminal scan, "Hm seems to be coming from the city near the centre of the map, there should be a battle with the Shinoa Squad and Narumi squad." He informed his boss. But on the satellite scan, the Shinoa squad's dot was still in the forests but they were the closest to Narumi's squad's dot. When the fight would be over, he knew that one of those dots would be shown inside of the ruined city. Rigr stepped off his rock in accompany of Ky Luc, "So," he started cheerily. 

"Do we go after KFLC?" He asked his question addressing it to the Progenitors' team leader. Siga Madu thought for a second. Which opinion would be more wise? To go after a battle that's not too far away or pursue the team you've wanted to kill? Siga sighed and checked the scan again, checking the distance between them and KFLC. Way too far, too many more miles to walk. He shook his head and told his team: "Forget KFLC, We're going after Narumi's squad."   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Shinoa's plan was simple, Yoichi was positioned as archer on the rooftop of a building to their left and Mika was pretty much doing the same but on the right. She told Mitsuba to take a detours without being noticed and managed to sneak up on the Narumi Squad. Now, her, Yuu and Kimizuki were standing in the centre of the alleyway, she was the decoy and the two boys were her attackers. The battle was now commencing. 

Narumi was in front of his two teammates Rika and Kagiyama, he held his ASG Steyr AUG A2 firmly while Rika reloaded her sniper rifle. They had spotted Yoichi on the rooftop and Rika is struggling on shooting him down possibly because Gekkouin, Yoichi's cursed gear, keeps deflecting her bullets. "I'm running low on my magazine, Narumi." She blew her bubblegum with frustration. Their team leader clicked his tongue in irritation as well, he was trying to figure out why the purple haired girl was just standing there without defending herself. "Shinoa, why she's standing there?" He growled once more. 

Kagiyama nodded at his frustration and aimed at the purple haired girl, she was smiling, upon examining his scope from closer. "I can eliminate her if you want." He told his leader. Narumi simply nodded at his request and turned his back to glance at the two other members hiding in bushes behind them. "Yayoi, Shūsaku, you guys have a grasp of our situation, right?" He spoke through the communicator. Both individuals nodded and loaded their sub machine guns. Then it was settled. 

Kagiyama fired a single bullet from his enhanced battle riffle and the bullet line's trajectory hits Shinoa's chest. But instead of dodging, she smiles and lifts her cursed gear up. "Shi." She muttered. As the bullets flew closer to the purple haired girl's direction, she swung her scythe and orange flames sparked out of it. The blade destroyed the small bullet in a nick of time, it acted like a sword. However, as Kagiyama reloaded his gun in awe, it was a signal for the attackers and Mika to charge in. Shinoa lifted her scythe again and said: "Shi, make sure no one loses too much health." She says and the weapon emits blue flames to surround Mika, Yuu and Kimizuki. 

"Shoot, Narumi, they're coming!" Kagiyama shouted out as he stepped out of the bush all three of them were huddled in. Narumi narrowed his eyebrows and began firing, Rika did the same. Yuu and Kimizuki used their blades to block the bullets but felt confident in rushing the other team due to the shield provided by Shinoa's scythe. The scythe user's eyes were illuminated in blue since she was converging her weapon's energy with hers to control the shield. Each time the shield cracks, she whimpers. 

"Oh yeah! Here we go!" Yuu chimed in happily as he swung his katana to his left.   
"Asura-kannon!" He yelled out his special move before wings of blades appeared behind the enemy team's backs. Rika and Narumi stopped shooting for a minute to stare at the blades that were now behind them. "Shoot them down!" Narumi ordered. Rika nodded and began unloading a full magazine to prevent her teammates from getting impaled. Yuu used this time to make way for Mika and Kimizuki. He was merely a distraction, Shinoa said that he should retreat after releasing Asura-kannon. 

The team managed to shoot down 14 of the fifteen blades summoned but ran out of time for the last one. Narumi was the unlucky one here and just as the blade charged towards his chest, he blocked with his arm and instead, his arm got impaled. He groaned in pain before stumbling backwards. Kagiyama, without mercy, pulled the stabbed blade out of his leader's arm before shaking him. "Pull yourself together man!" He yelled. Narumi weakly sighed and checked his health bar,   
"Down to 50%, no time to heal." He told his comrades. The bubblegum in Rika's mouth finally popped. "What? Nonsense! You'll die!" She pointed out. 

As Narumi was about to respond, Kimizuki charged in and swung his twin blades at the three players. "No time!" He aggressively stated. The three players' eyes widened when they noticed Kimizuki jumping upwards to meet them and slice their throats up. Narumi glanced at the sky and noticed his second murderer. Mikaela Hyakuya jumped down from the rooftop with kill-lust eyes. He had his photon sword out and prepared to swing.   
'But no way he'll survive that jump.' Narumi thought, more bothered on getting Kimizuki away. 

Mika literally jumped off a building and how did the rest of his team expect him to land safety? They should be aware that their teammates would get killed so were they tossing Mika in the sacrifice list without thought? Rika gasped and began shooting at Mika. "We're gonna die!" She exclaimed. Yayoi and Shūsaku attempted to help out as well by shooting Mika and it was their shots that were the most successful. Mika winced as polygon fragments appeared on his left thigh and right leg. "Got them!" Shūsaku reported.   
But Mika wasn't dead nor was he finished. 

"Tenjiryū! Now!" A teenager with blonde hair and purple eyes yelled from right beside Yayoi and Shūsaku. She stood up and slammed her axe down on the soil ground. Narumi's eyes widened as blue flames were casted on the ground. Mika landed directly on them and bounced off them. "Ah I see, so a soft landing." commented Kagiyama full of spite. Mika landed on the ground and stabbed Rika, his nearest target. The blonde haired enemy player spat out blood, directly in the right lung as well. "Rika!" Yayoi timidly gasped out. 

When Rika's body went limp, Mika was exposed to Yayoi's bullets and so it did hit him. Two bullets hit his chest and a third one spitefully hit his stomach, Mika panted and stumbled back as a bullet hit him each time. Blood dripped from his mouth and he glared at Mitsuba. "Mitsuba!" He used every last of his energy to yell out before he collapsed in a bush. The blonde haired teammate of his nodded and slammed her axe down on the ground again. Yayoi was launched off the ground, chasms in the ground was created and it sent her flying all the way till she crashed into another building and was impaled by a sharp rock. 

"Mika!" Yuu and Shinoa ran over to their dying comrade. He had about 20% at the moment and it was still decreasing. The blonde boy smiled and used his hand to grab his medkits but due to the lack of strength, he dropped them to the ground. Shinoa gladly picked them up and impaled them into his arm, all three of them. She couldn't keep one for him to save, his health would be way too low. Mika laughed and the blood began disappearing. "Haha, thanks." He thanked. Yuu nodded and smiled at him. "So you'll be okay, yeah?" He told Mika. By the way that he saw his health bar increase by 1% every second, he was confident enough to smile back at the black haired boy. "Yeah!"   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
In the meantime, Narumi growled as he still had not gotten rid of Kimizuki. The pink haired boy desperately rushed him, charging at him with his twin blades and managed to push him away where the two corpses lay. "Dammit." He cursed out as Kimizuki sent him back once more. Narumi figured that he should use his secret weapon, the weapon that he only revealed to his comrades. "Are you giving up yet?" Kimizuki asked, swiftly flinging his left blade to slice Narumi's cheek. Pitifully, Narumi only had his ASG Steyr AUG A2 to block with. 

The gun crumbled and cracked at every swing. He knows that he'll have to purchase a new one after this tournament and the idea already sucked. He sighed and managed to throw his gun aside and run off, he winced. He had abandoned his own gun on the battlefield but he needed some distance. But luckily for him, Kimizuki stopped in front of where he threw his gun and stood there, awaiting for any other unusual attacks from the enemy. The brown haired boy that had a bun took out a black stick from his back and stretched it out. Kimizuki's eyes widened. 

It was a cursed gear as well, but it looked nothing like any of the Shinoa's squad's weapons. Narumi's weapon was a trident.   
It didn't stop Kimizuki from charging at him now that his weapon is revealed. Sure it was no sword but it definitely was enough to fuel the pink haired player. The two weapons clashed and there was a power struggle between them. "My teammates had cursed gear too." Narumi confessed with a proud laugh. Kimizuki pushed his "X-positioned" blades further.   
"Oh yeah? Didn't know." He retorted. 

Narumi moved his trident up which caused Kimizuki to grow unbalanced. He tripped and growled as he felt a sharp pain on his back. The fact that he fell so harshly on the ground, he felt his ribs crackle from within. But the pain on his back, "Hah!" It was Narumi who impaled his trident into his back. Kimizuki growled and tried to stand back up. "You..!" He hissed in an attempt to save himself.   
Narumi shook his head, "No, you killed two of my teammates. It'll be a shame if I can't kill one of you." He grinned. 

Kimizuki winced ans grasped the dirt under him. "Dammit, why?" He whispered as his mouth was shoved to the ground because Narumi impaled his weapon further inside of his back. But using his hand muscle, he pressed a button by his communicator. "S-Shinoa..." he called weakly.   
~~~~~~~~~~~  
Shinoa was still with Mika and Yuu until she heard his calling from their communicator. Mika tilted his head in confusion, he was still laying on the bush, waiting for his health to recover. "Is that Kimizuki?" He asked. The purple haired leader moved away a bit and took out her scope from her pockets. "What happened, where are you?" She asked, speaking through the communicator. 

Kimizuki coughed out blood as he continued his report. "N-Narumi got me.. I messed up with my moves." He admitted and Shinoa sighed. "There we go again, that's why I said you shouldn't over do it." She warned him one last time. But Kimizuki only laughed, "Yoichi is already aware?" He inquired and Shinoa replied spontaneously: "Yup. Now stay low."   
The communicator shut off since Kimizuki slid his hand to shut it off again. He laughed as he raised his head to face Narumi's. "Hahah, called your leader there?" The bun wearing boy taunted. But Kimizuki said: "No, I was just asking on how your death was going." 

"Gekkouin." 

A flashing green bird was shot out of a bow and it flew directly down to where Kimizuki and Narumi were. "Heads up." The pink haired player pushed his elbow up to punch Narumi in the stomach. The bun wearing boy stumbled back and grasped his stomach. "Hey-" the trident was still on his enemy's back but he couldn't speak another word. Yoichi's bird shot through his chest and it obliterated in half. As he perished, Narumi watched how Kimizuki gave a smug look. Looks like the battle had been won by him after all. 

"Nice work Yoichi," Kimizuki said as a 'DEAD' marker appeared on top of Narumi's head. The brown haired boy smiled and waved from the rooftops. He smiled and began walking over to where his team leader was. But first, he ripped the weapon out of his back and growled in pain. Right, he had three medkits. Kimizuki used them and felt his lowered 40% health increase again. He continued walking and met up with Mitsuba, Mika, Shinoa and Yuu. "Hey." He greeted them. 

Yuu places his hands on his teammate's shoulders. "Hey are you alright? Sorry we couldn't help." He apologized. Big Kimizuki shook his head. "Yeah you guys better be sorry but it's fine now." He still kept a cold response despite playing with these same people for the last 4 years. Mika chuckled and glanced at Yoichi, he signalled the boy to come down from the rooftop. Shinoa glanced at the dead bodies. There was Rika, Yayoi, Shūasaku and Kagiyama. Oh and Makoto Narumi all the way in the distance. "How did you kill the rest?" Kimizuki asked. 

Shinoa didn't bother being detailed but she just said: "Yuu actually killed both of them. He quickly rushed over to them and sliced them in the waist." She explained and Yuu gave a feisty look. "Yeah I was awesome out there!" He cheered. Kimizuki and Mika laughed before Shinoa took out her terminal scan. "It's now 4:41PM." She told her teammates. The battle lasted 16 minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hi! It's me the Author and thank you for reading the long awaited chapter 6 of SS! I recently became interested to write more about AGGO and ONS so I figured, why not make the most out of it! Now here we have a battle going on between the Narumi squad and the Shinoa squad and I admit, the battle was very fun to think about! So many ideas on how each character contributed to the battle but the description was extremely painful.  
> Yoichi was actually gonna kill off Shūsaku and Kagiyama with Gekkouin but I didn't anticipate the little face-off between Kimizuki and Narumi. Anyways, it's like 1AM as I'm writing this, I'm quite exhausted so I'll end my note here! Thank you for reading, cya!!


	7. Arrogant demon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A certain team that goes by the name of: “KKHC” tries something funny to the KFLC team, only to have their surprise attack foiled by the arrogant demon Ferid, who saw all of this coming after the pink vampire queen Krul sacrificed herself to a rain of bullets.

"We missed the scan, so now people will be charging for us." Yuuichiro pointed out as he and his team all settled down to sit in an abandoned mall. The blonde ponytailed girl shushed him and told Shinoa to continue reading from the scan.  
The purple haired girl nodded and opened the terminal scan from her skirt pocket. The small device flickered before all dots were shown from the previous 4:40 scan. "So that means we've missed two scans? Great."Mika groaned. 

"Oh shush, would you rather we died during that fight or missed two scans were barely any teams moved-" she was interrupted by the purple haired girl who raised a hand up. "Actually Mitsu, the progenitors team led by Siga Madu is coming straight for us." She admitted. Mitsuba's face flushed in disgust, oh great, more trouble coming their way? Just when she was already exhausted from slamming her axe on the ground. Yoichi gave an uneasy expression upon hearing that but Kimizuki patted his back. "We'll be fine. Don't worry, Shinoa will come up with an idea, right Shinoa?" The glasses-wearing boy glanced over to where the leader stood. 

The purple haired girl nodded before she was interrupted by the obnoxious Yuu.   
"Props to Shinoa though! For coming up with that plan!" The black haired boy cheered. The rest of his comrades all nodded before Yoichi mentioned something. "It's true, we did say in the last SS that we wanted to fight Krul with our cursed gear, she's so strong." He said. Yes, it was a goal of theirs to fight the vampire queen, ever since Mika discovered her immense strength, he encouraged the rest of his team to fight alongside him. "Well I think we've trained enough, shall we track her down?" continued Yuu. However, Shinoa shook her head. "We can't go after her yet." She reminded. 

"Why?" It seems that the black haired katana user has already forgotten. 

"Because the Progenitors are coming."   
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Since Siga Madu's team was coming straight for them, the Shinoa squad had figured that they should at least create more distance between them. The battle with the Narumi squad has forced two of the team's attackers to use up all of their medkits as well as Idle some time for the Progenitors to arrive here all planned out. Right now, they were walking down a slope, getting away from the ruined town. There were chances that the Progenitors carried with them a grenade launcher so they didn't want to risk anything.

It would be convenient if they had found a truck or a vehicle of some sort for Kimizuki to drive them away with but no luck thus far. Shinoa was in the lead while Mika and Yuu were in the back. The two had a chance to chat a bit as they all walked. "Hey Mika, are you doing okay?" Yuu asked for about the fifth time the minute. His blonde friend simply chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, my health bar is about 80% full, I think that's how high it could go since I lost a lot." He admitted. 

His companion lowered his brows and extended his hand out for him, "Then that just means I have to try really hard yo protect you, huh?" He giggled and Mika blushed a bit at his determination to protect him. "Huh? You really have to, Yuu. We're a team and we all work together. Don't mind my low health." He told the stubborn black haired boy. The squad has now entered a tunnel meant for cars to go through when driving, Shinoa sighed as he took in the dimmer out orange lights. "I wish the city didn't look so ruined, I bet it was beautiful." She commented. 

As small chatter went on between her and Mitsu, agreeing with one another that cities are absolutely a sight for sore eyes, Mika and Yuu continued on with their little ramble. "Even Shinoa said it herself," Yuu started which raised questions in Mika's blue eyes. What did Shinoa say about medkits and health? He didn't get it unless he didn't understand Yuu's point. Being deep in thought, trying to find Yuu's meaning, he didn't realized that the black haired boy placed a hand on his shoulder. 

"Yuu-chan?" Mika's eyes widened and Yuu smiled at him. "Forgetful, Shinoa said that we'd win SS3 all together and if you were dead, then, we registered for nothing!" He told him. Mika could have sworn that he wouldn't laugh at such a petty excuse but he did, he laughed and he laughed, so loud that Yoichi turned around to see what was wrong. But when he stopped, he nodded at the black haired boy. "What? Don't worry, we'll all win SS3 together!" He cheered alongside him. But deep in his thoughts, he smiled to himself, 'Thank you Yuu-chan, for caring about me.' Despite this was a game, Mika was glad that his friend would do everything to protect him.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
On top a mountain, there was a conflict going on. "Lord Kureto!" The blonde woman with purple eyes rushed over to the stern-looking man behind the mountains' rocks. He peered out of his scope and greeted to enter his refuge. "So, did you get any information to why we're being attacked?" He wondered. 

The blonde nodded frantically, "Yes! We're under attack by KKHC!" She gaped out and began taking out her photon sword. However, Kureto shook his head and fired a single bullet from his weapon. "No need, Aoi. Let me handle everything. Tell me more about whatever the hell KKHC stands for." He firmly adjusted his scope to look around his surroundings. Aoi felt like she was just punched in the gut, why was that? Well because she didn't get a good look at them. She had noticed that the two players in the lead had snipers but she knew how risky it was already to be sent off to explore the woods for any enemies. 

She had spotted a boy with a panther-like mask with flowing black hair and a man with luscious red lipstick and a funny-looking top hat. Their main weapons were snipers and she saw the bullet-line was aimed directly for her forehead. In a screech, Aoi used her Mini Moose sub machine gun to block the bullets. That's why Kureto gave her a confused look when she was all out of breath with a half broken gun in her hands. "I don't know! But they were hiding away behind the trees! They-" as she telling all of the information, a bulletin ricocheted from the rock they were hiding behind. Aoi screeched. 

"Don't panic, I've got this." He said as he fired a single bullet. Aoi bit her lips, 'But you don't know where they are, Kureto.' She thought carefully before realizing what the man beside her was doing. Each time a member from KKHC fired a bullet, Kureto retraced where it came from and fired in the same direction. All Aoi could do was watch in fear that one of them would pull off a wrong move. 

"Damn, I messed it up again."

"Shoot without a bullet-line, Basteya, we've done this sort of thing in real life already." 

'bam bam' 

Kureto was flung backwards as a bullet pierced through his ear. He quickly grasped his injury and noticed it bleeding quickly. Aoi gasped and quickly pulled out a medkit from her pockets. "Kureto, you've been shot!" She pointed out the obvious much to Kureto's annoyance. "I know I know," he pushed her aside. He needed to fight despite his bizarre looking injury. He squeezed the trigger of his gun and it shot a bullet rather hazily through the red-lead skies. Kureto softly groaned in pain. 

"I knew it was a bad idea to register as pairs only!" tears could be seen coming down from Aoi's eyes. Hearing the slightest weeping from Aoi made the man materialize his main fighting arm from his inventory. It was a Mossberg 500 410 shotgun. He quickly hauled it over his knee and used it to lift it up over the rocks. Kureto lifted himself up too to one knee and began firing while refining the chamber. Aoi decided that she was more than useless if she just sat and watched. She began firing some bullets from her own machine gun. 

Now with KKHC receiving some backfire, the team leader, Nix Parthe clicked his tongue in disgust. "It's because of you that they're now firing back!" He affirmed in a shout. Scuffled leaves from behind him were heard before a short black haired androgynous player popped their head out. He had an offended look on their face as Nix growled at them more. "I thought you didn't take games seriously, Nix." Basteya pointed out. 

"I don't! But 'Seraph of the End' is different!" Nix replied in the same angry tone. Basteya kept their mouth shut and instead began on working to make their team leader happy again. Basteya aimed their scope at the targets and didn't squeeze the trigger of their gun. If a player squeezed their gun's trigger, it would create a bullet line to be seen and that wasn't the goal of KKHC here. KKHC were a band of irl friends that worked in an animal sanctuary as hunters. They've pretty much gotten shooting experience and wanted to play 'Seraph of the End' for good fun. And possibly flex on other players. 

"Calm down calm down, we still have the upper hand." Lucal reassured his arguing teammates. He was hiding behind a tree on the right of the bush Basteya and Nix were in. Basteya flinched at his statement, "Sure. How?" He retorted. Lucal smiled, his red lips curling. He aimed his sniper at the buff male player on the enemy team, his finger squeezed the trigger and immediately let go after the shot. Kureto groaned as his forehead was shot. This was an immediate kill and Aoi didn't know where it came from since there was no bullet line. "Like that." Lucal responded. 

"Kureto!" Aoi shook his shoulders and begged him to give her the next orders. However, his body just went limp and soon a 'DEAD' marker was over his head. He was dead and out of the tournament. Aoi shed a tear before she stood up from the ground and narrowed her eyes at wherever KKHC were hiding. "Shoot me! I dare you, or else I-" she paused mid-way to look down at Kureto's lifeless body. If he heard her say this next thing, he would give her a cold slap for even saying it. "Or else I resign!" She taunted. 

Nix hissed at that. No, she cannot resign, their team needed that kill. He aimed his sniper at her forehead, for an instant kill. That's how they killed mooses and deers anyways, shoot them in the forehead for a guaranteed death and so that no metal gets involved with the meat. "That's a coward." Basteya commented, watching Nix's eyes flare up. "Oh no she doesn't." He growled then exhaled and a bullet was fired. A 'DEAD' marker appeared on the purple eyes girl's head as she fell on atop of her partner. The tryhard duo was out. 

Nix sighed, well that was that dull battle over. It was more one-sided than he thought. He wished that Lucal refrained from killing off Kureto and that KKHC faced a real challenge however, that's not the case. He wrapped his gun's sling around his shoulder before standing up from the ground. He turned his head back and faced an individual who was pressed behind a tree the entire fight. "You know Chess, you could have shot too." He mentioned. 

Chess was a blue haired girl who seemed childish at first glance, she caries a childish personality and even whines like one however, she just turned 18 a few months ago. She got a job by the animal sanctuary, being recommended by her friend Horn and she loved her life ever since. Living with the animals and making customers happy by bringing them fresh meat. She could wield a gun and shoot animals. "No, that's okay. Maybe next time." She whispered, putting away her binoculars. But she couldn't shoot humans. 

"What's our next course of action?" Basteya asked, gathering with the rest of their friends. Nix took his terminal scan out and checked the scan. It was now 4:48PM, and they realized that KFLC was nearby, just a few rocks away from where they were located. "I have an idea and I think they already know it."Basteya said upon noticing the team locations on the scan. Nix glared him, "No you will not. I encountered Ferid in the last SS and he was a terrible player." 

Terrible as in: super evil or somewhat, whatever happened in SS2, Nix despises Ferid Bathory with all of his pixeled mind and his team was aware of it but Basteya didn't seem to think that Nix was serious. "Come on, they might agree to it!" they chimed and just like that, Nix was forced to follow his team towards KFLC.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The vampire queen's team had a chance to glance at the terminal scan as they were calmly hanging out by the forests' rocks and treetops. It was mossy but what Ferid hated the most about it was that it was quiet, way too quiet for his own liking. Sure some birds flew past him but it happened really rarely. He tried bugging Krul, by making small talk with her to keep himself entertained but the pink haired girl wasn't interested. 

"Ah, my gun is getting bored, we really need to kill more people~" fawned Ferid as he lay beside Krul on the rock. However, as she saw his head was near her thigh, she growled and pushed him off the rock. "Stay focused, Bathory." She warned and put away the terminal scan. Crowley shrugged at the small conflict and Lest was looking out with binoculars. They had fought off one enemy team so far and that was the team that the encountered in the abandoned village. Since then, all of them, and they all knew it themselves, that all of them wanted to kill players. 

"So, why aren't we hunting anyone? I'm boredddddddd." Ferid kicked the dirt under his boots. Lest looked down to where he was begging for fun and just have him a sneer. "Anyways Krul, what was on the scan?" He asked. The pink haired girl checked her wristwatch and sighed, plopping her back down on the rock and vulnerably exposed herself to the sun. "A team named KKHC wants to do business with us so watch out everyone." She was laying down on the spacious big rock. 

It wasn't until fifteen minutes later that KKHC found themselves to greet the pink vampire bunny queen, it was like all of them were expecting the newly arriving team. Sitting down by the rocks, Krul raised her hand up. "I wouldn't shoot if I were you." Her red eyes left a frosty chill go down the other team's spine. Basteya raised their hand up as Krul just told them off. "We weren't intending to actually. We wanted to make a proposal." They said.   
Krul and Ferid exchanged glances and she let the man take over, sure whatever.

If he screws it up anyways, she'll be sure to kill him for that. "A proposal, you say? Let's hear it." Ferid smiled at them. It was an almost too friendly one if you asked Krul herself however the other team seemed to have fallen for it. With wide eyes, Basteya smiled at them, "KFLC, it would be an honour if we could fight alongside you." Basteya started. Ferid just gave an amused smile after hearing that. It seems he already knows the direction on where this was going. "Besides," Basteya continued. 

"We have shooting experiences in real life, we could shoot without a bullet line. So we could certainly help you guys win." They chimed in, mentioning happily about all the great things they could do. Ferid scoffed and shot his eyes, knew it. They were here to brag well sadly for them, Crowley here knew how to shoot without a bullet line too but Ferid didn't mention it unless KKHC tried to betray them. "Wait, so I heard that you'll give us the victory?" He questioned the black haired speaker. 

"Yup! When we're the last two teams standing, we'll happily resign." They explained. Ferid didn't know what to say, just smile but he did look over to Krul, who was sitting beside him. "Wait I don't get it, if you don't want the victory, why did you join?" She asked the team. The other team all looked at eachother, wondering to each other who would be the one to answer that. Before finally, "Oh the win doesn't matter, we just registered into 'Seraph Squads' to practice our aim." Lucal answered. 

"I'd certainly like to see you shoot without lines."'Crowley commented quietly and quickly. Basteya smiled and turned over to where the two attackers were sitting. "So what do you say? Team up?" The black haired player inquired once more. Ferid's eyes scanned the team, there was Basteya of course, happy to be here. Lucal, who didn't seem too bothered, Horn who was smiling too and finally Nix and Chess who gave uneasy looks. "What's wrong with those two?" Ferid asked. Basteya turned around to face his two comrades and personally check what Ferid was trying to point out. 

"I don't like you Ferid Bathory but I'm only going along with this alliance plan because I care about my team's opinions and amusement, unlike you, you arrogant demon." Nix hissed at him before staying silent for the rest of the negotiations. The entire KFLC team exchanged glances with one another, well if you asked Crowley, Krul And Lest, they definitely appreciated Nix Parthe's behaviour. If they had seen what Ferid did to Crowley in SS2, they had every right to call Ferid more than a demon. 'We might even get to the A word.' Krul thought rather quietly. Oh well, the silver haired man didn't seem too bothered by the snarky remarks being shot through back and forth. "And her?" He pointed at Chess. In which the latter flinched. 

Basteya glanced at the silent Chess Belle, he gave an unbothered look. He wasn't even curious to why she didn't want to speak up then again, it could be that Basteya and KKHC were already used to the silent-types. "Oh she doesn't like shooting at people, don't worry, she won't cause you any trouble and we won't be in your way during battles." The short black haired player continued. Ferid and Krul exchanged glances and she was mildly annoyed by his gleaming smile when he managed to catch her in an eye contact. "Alright, tell us what you can do." The pink haired bunny stalled, Basteya seemed more than pleased as one of the powerhouse teams had just asked for them to brag some more, ugh. Mix and Lucal gave bored expressions as Basteya began to blabber. "We're mainly snipers! That's our main weapon and like we said before, we can shoot without a bullet-line mainly because we work at a—" Ferid almost scoffed when he felt his wrist being yanked by the pink haired girl. 

"What?" whispered Ferid, being as quiet as possible not to interrupt the black haired player's story. 

"Shut up and just pay attention." whispered back Krul, her fangs resting on her lower lip. 

"—It's really fun and people ask us where we get our skills from and honestly, it's all from practice! Nix had trouble killing an antler a few months ago and that's why he suggested we all play 'Seraph of the End'—" 

Ferid shivered as he felt a tickling sensation on his gloved hand. When he peered over to what was brushing against his glove, it was Krul's finger. He met her eyes and noticed she was watching Nix and Basteya attentively. Ferid just took a deep breath and paid attention, like asked. 

'K' His companion had written the letter 'K' on the palm on his hand as the story progressed. Crowley and Lest noticed Nix's cheeks flustering red as Basteya told their amateur tales. "Please, this is getting boring." The short bomber muttered to his sniper buddy. 

"—We started farming in deserts, occasionally visited a dungeon once a week during the weekends and can you believe it, the snipers weren't affordable for us yet so we sticked to pistols!—" Basteya continued on. Krul kept writing. 

The letters 'I' and 'L' were written, Ferid kept listening through until Basteya reached the end of the story and Krul finished right on time. As if being snapped out of a trance, Ferid's hair wafted in the soft breeze and he glanced happily at their future comrades of SS3. "Oh how amusing!" He chimed, as if he had listened the entire way through. Not really, he mostly paid attention to what his 'real comrade' had to say. 

"So what do you say?" Basteya's eyes glimmered with hope. "Team?" 

Ferid hopped off the rock he was sitting on and sighed happily. Aw man, had he wished the sun was an audience of his for what he was about to do. "I'm sorry," he commenced. "I don't think it'll work out." He broke the sad news for the sniping-loving team. Nix growled at Basteya and practically scolded him after the decision from KFLC's demon was heard. "See, I told you this was a foolish plan!" Nix bared his canines. However, there was no need for violence. "Oh no no, it wasn't. We're quite flattered you came to us in the first place~!" covered Ferid as he didn't want any breaking arguments in their territory. 

Crowley and Lest were already doing them a great favour by watching for any enemy teams deciding to third-party them. They just left the bloodshed for their two most wildest comrades. They say that there's a rivalry between the pink bunny queen and the silver haired maniac. But if you paired them up together, they could be one dangerous bunch. Ferid was made seem that he was the one orchestrating this entire alliance mess but in reality, it was all Krul's planning. She knew Ferid was a pawn of hers and plus, she knew how much Ferid would like this plan as well. Therefore, both were amused in their own ways. "But unfortunately, we're kind of testing out our own skills too! I believe it would be too much of a burden to have other teams watching us play, no offense!" Ferid mused. 

Nix sighed and nodded, 'well he didn't try to kill anyone yet, so that's good. Perhaps he wasn't that bad?' the team leader thought in an unsure manner. Basteya nodded as well as he lowered his head. "Oh that's okay, perhaps next time." They said. As the team began to retreat into the tree thickets, Ferid called out after them: "We're really sorry for the inconvenience!" He even dared wave at them, for words he didn't mean...that's a lot of effort being made. Nix and Basteya were in the lead while Lucal and Horn were in the centre, leaving Chess in the vanguard. "We promise we won't attack until next scan." promised Nix patronizingly. All that was heard was a chuckle from Ferid. 

When they were a few miles away, Ferid looked over at the pink bunny, who had her arms crossed. She was not looking at him nor did she want to. "You know Krullie dear, that was really clever thinking of you! Secret communication, I like it!" Ferid chimed. Crowley gave a confused expression hearing all of this, as far as he was concerned, there was no secret communication between them while the conversation was going. Unless, he simply wasn't close enough. "What do you mean secret communication?" The sniper inquired before he was interrupted by Krul Tepes. "I did what I had to do, remember the strategy whenever you need to communicate with me or the rest of the members." She responded quietly. Right, she had to teach Lest and Crowley. 

The silver haired man sighed and reached for his left plastic holster attached to his belt. "Well, it can't be helped." His fingers slithered to take hold on one of his XDM duellies. His lips cursed into a smile as Krul say there emotionless, but if she were in a movie, flames would be growing in her pupils as she hungrily watched the slaughter about to begin. KKHC was about 3 metres away now and they continued chatting along, completely oblivious for what was about to happen. Horn nudged Chess' shoulder as the blue haired girl seemed to be zoning out. "Hey, put a smile on your face!" The blonde encouraged Nd that immediately put a smile on the silent girl's face. 

That face turned into sheer horror as a clicking noise was heard behind her. 

Seconds too late, if she had time to warn her team on the noise she heard, the safety trigger of a pistol being unlocked- 

"Gu-" 

'Bang' 

Lucal, who was in front of her toppled over and polygon fragments flowed like a newly released river. He had been shot from behind. 

The rest of the attacked team turned around after they had heard the loud bang noise coming from behind them. Nix was the first to react, seeming as he is in fact the team leader. After noticing Lucal's health bar reducing to zero at the top left of his screen, he immediately whipped his head back and his eyes widened in without a doubt rage and surprise. 

Behind them, Ferid had a hand extended, it was his dominant hand to wield his XDM pistol. A big smile covered his accomplice behind him but Nix spotted Krul Tepes' look despite the tall man shielding her. She was smiling, glowing magenta eyes piercing into his soul. 

A word was written in Ferid's palm earlier. 

It was kill.   
~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Everyone! Run for your lives!" Nix yelled to his team as he had just figured out what Ferid—no, what Ferid and Krul had planned for them. Nix Parthe didn't think that Krul Tepes would have herself involved in this mass murder but here she was, practically the ringmaster. Guess, he had underestimated her due to her outfit, he couldn't take her seriously with all that pink and black. Especially that dopey-looking hat of hers. Basteya gasped and ran but still tried to reason with the attacker from the KFLC team. "Hey, we made about a deal about no attacking until next-" a gunshot was fired to seal his lips. The second casualty of the KKHC team has been committed. 

Ferid scoffed to himself before adjusting his hold on the trigger. "You should have listened to your leader, he even said it himself. I'm an arrogant demon." He grinned and continued his firing, the targets of his all stumbled over, one by one and so much in-game blood was spilled on the forest grass. 

There were now two players left, everyone was dead. "We must escape!" Chess convinced her sole partner, Horn Skuld, to escape with her. Despite looking hopeful to make it out alive, Chess and Horn continued to run. Only for the latter to feel a mysterious hole begin to drain her insides. Horn collapsed on the grass and spat out blood. Chess yelped as she crouched down beside her best friend. "Horn! Horn! Please stay!" She urged the blonde haired girl, even trying to shake her almost limb arms. However, Horn didn't have much health left, she was hit good and she was going to die. "K-Keep....g-" a 'DEAD' marker stopped her mid-sentence. 

"Oh no, she's dead." Ferid taunted with a big smile, his head looped over to his comrades and none of them were impressed, not even by his impressive shooting. Lest sighed and rubbed his red eyes, "Ah, you should have at least killed them all quicker, see look, the blue haired one is escaping." He pointed out in exact disappointment. Crowley sighed at Ferid's mistake and lifted his battle rifle, "I can take care of this." he pointed his sniper's muzzle at the runaway Chess. But Ferid halted him in his movements. "Hold it, It's bad to shoot those who can't defend themselves." He grinned. No teammate of his can even bear to look at him like a sane person anymore after that. 

It was now 5:00PM. Krul stood up from the rock and took out the satellite scan from her skirt pockets. "Guys, scan starting." She told the rest of her team. Ferid clapped happily, putting away his pistol, Lest nodded without much debate and Crowley stayed quiet. They all huddled over to where Krul was and she sighed. "Okay, let's do this." She commented before the map was displayed before her very eyes. All the way at the bottom was the Guren's squad, they had not budged from where they had spawned, Ferid scoffed at that. Next, was the Progenitors, who had arrived at the centre of the map, they were diagonal to where the Shinoa squad was, a bit to the north and finally, there was them, KFLC. A team isolated in the top east of the map, hiding away in the forests. But upon further examination, her eyes widened. A dot was right next to theirs. 

"Ferid!" The team leader hopped off the rock and hopped onto the silver haired man's shoulder. A figure was standing in front of her mad behind her whole team. They were aiming for the maniac man, of course. 

"I'm not done yet!!" raged an angry blue haired girl, she lifted her side-arm, a pistol and shot at Ferid's back. It was Chess Belle, KKHC's final surviving member.   
~~~~~~~~~  
The bullet was fired out of the pistol muzzle and zoomed pass the trees in the backgrounds. Ferid turned around in surprise as he felt pressure land on his shoulders by Krul's stilettos. She bent forward and her small hand reached down for the photon sword attached to Ferid's belt. She unsheathed the weapon and with burning rage, she activated the blade. The sword was of a gleamy red colour, ready to bring death to whoever attacked. 

Chess watched with victorious eyes and a happy smile as she believed that she had shot the man dead. But to her surprise and disappointment, Krul was too fast. When the bullet was about to shoot pass his back, she swung the sword similar to what Lest's bullet-lines looked like and managed to cut open the bullet, saving both her and Ferid's life. "What?!" yelped Chess Belle in absolute sadness and potential anger. She stepped back as she caught a glimpse of Krul Tepes' vicious look while wielding that red lightsword. 

So what's the initial instinct to do when you miss a single shot like that? Chess already came across these scenarios in the past, especially during those times when she missed her target, the moose. Why, it was to keep shooting of course. Normally, you'd take your time to adjust your aim but Chess was in panic mode right now. "Why you!! You won't get away with this!!" She let out all of her fury on the small bunny atop Ferid Bathory's shoulder. She began firing in all directions, but specifically three shots were coming in their direction. "Watch out!" yelled Crowley to his teammates. 

But this time, Chess Belle was faster. Already being unbalanced by standing on Ferid's shoulder, as the man shifted uncontrollably by the fact that heels dug into his shoulders. Krul stumbled backwards which caused her to fall into the incoming fire. All three bullets pierced into her shoulders, at least it was nowhere serious. However, the fact that these bullets didn't miss her at all, the momentum of being shot as well as the fall from being atop Ferid's shoulder, she slammed head-first into the rock she was sitting on earlier. She had dropped Ferid's sword,in which the blade switched off as well as the terminal scan. Krul winced and blood was spat out from her, Chess watched in almost fear as she had just shot a human being. 

"Die vermin!" Chess yelled out to Ferid, the one who double-crossed her teammates, the one who double-crosses everyone. She wasn't even sure if Crowley, Lest and even Krul should trust this insane man. This time, Ferid was prepared. He ducked at the incoming bullets as Chess reloaded her pistol and even dared to take out two. The bullets pierced through everything, the leaves, the tree trunks, even ricocheted from a few rocks. "Lest, Crowley, take care of Chess Belle and I'll bring Krul to safety!" The silver haired man strangely said. Usually, he'd be the one urging to get into battle, but this time, he insisted on protecting his rival. I guess he was impressed enough that Krul showed him her skills with the photon sword. 

As he lifted Krul off the ground and carried her in a bridal carry, Lest raised an eyebrow at his order. "Alright, how?" He screeched in panic as more bullets were being fired. Crowley had to duck his shoulders several times in order to avoid the bullets. Ferid beared his fangs in Karr's direction, he simply smiled. "I don't know, figure something out~!" He encouraged the two other players then jumped over the giant rock Krul was injured from. Crowley and Lest exchanged glances, "Alright, I have an idea, just follow my lead." The sniper took out his side-arm, a pistol as well. He began to fire back. 

Lest panicked a bit on the inside, as he understood one step of Crowley's plan. That was, to hide behind the other massive rock and take out a plasma grenade. 'Think Lest. Lest, think.' He slapped his small cheeks and stared at the grenade. If he threw it in right now, Crowley may be in risk of getting affected by the explosion but if he let it get shot at by any of the offensive bullets, then he'd ne the one dying from an explosion. He growled as he couldn't think of anything until, his eyes glanced to his right. "Huh?" He quietly hissed as he spotted gloved fingers make a 'come' gesture. It was Ferid Bathory, who was smiling like usual. This must be apart of Crowley's plan. 

"Ferid, is Krul healed?" Lest spoke over the communicator. Sure they can talk with eachother without them but with all the firing, not many would be able to hear eachother. It didn't take much time for the silver haired man to answer: "Yup all better now~! I told her to take it easy though!" He responded. Lest huffed in slight annoyance but yet, was kind of glad that Ferid had his sword out, if not, then Krul and him would be totally dead. All because this idiot decided to mess with karma. Lest was about to zone out into battle, watching Crowley get shot on his arms and blood dripping from his lips however, the sight of Ferid's tall build slither upwards made the small grenader flinch.   
"What do you think you're doing?!" Lest snapped over the radio. Ferid smiled at his obnoxiously loud reaction and gave him a thumbs up. "It's all part of the plan."   
~~~~~~~~~~  
"What are you trying to do?! Get killed for real this time?!" Lest continued, his words not being able to stop his moving figure from climbing the rock and making his way to Crowley. "Hush Lest, don't talk and trust me!" He laughed whilst taking out his pistol. Lest practically hissed as he prayed to the red lead skies that Ferid would just think for a minute. 'Use your photon sword.' he insisted in his mind. 'Use your photon sword, godammit.' He cursed and venomous words spilled onto his tongue. Chess Belle practically stopped firing when Ferid Bathory appeared. "Vermin." She spat cold words. 

Crowley ceased firing as well, sighing as he had to refill his pistols. Chess noticed this and pointed her gun at Crowley, in which the latter just scoffed and refilled his gun casually in the middle of both players. Lest could be seen face-palming in the background and Krul was knocked out. "Oh I wouldn't do that if I were you. Crowley's a really nice guy." Ferid grinned, Crowley scoffed once more after hearing that. A nice guy huh, was Ferid being serious? Chess shook her head and tears exploded from her red eyes. "Shut up! Just die!" She switched her aim back to Ferid however he saw it coming. The man rushed forward, zigzagged when the bullet came past him. He stopped behind Chess Belle and snickered. "But I don't want to." He whispered in her ear. 

It sent a cold shiver down her spine as she resorted to her last weapon. Chess' hand reached for her black dress's pockets. Ferid smiled, Crowley was emotionless, Lest's eyes were widened and Krul couldn't react at all. In her hand, was a plasma grenade. "Ahahaha...clever..." Ferid muttered, backing away from the now armed blue haired player. Chess grinned at him and looked at the weapon in her hands, "Oh ho, so you're scared of this?" She laughed.   
Ferid shook his head, okay well, maybe a tiny bit. Plasma grenades were like a sub machine gun, the fire spreads everywhere. Unlike assault rifles who had consecutive targets. "Of course not, maybe because I'm too bored to attack you." He chuckled back. Chess raised a brow before she used her other hand to squeeze on her pistol trigger. 

"Now!" Crowley shouted as loud as he could from his communicator. So this was Crowley's plan, had he foreseen ahead of time that KKHC carried a few plasma grenades? Well who cares right now! Lest nodded at the order and threw the grenade as far as he could to collide with the one carried by KKHC's surviving member. He watched how Ferid's figure stumbled to the floor after blood poured out of his chest and How Chess's avatar became enveloped in the massive two grenade explosion. This marked the end of KKHC's inscription into 'Seraph Squads' 3. Lest sighed in relief as he saw the 'DEAD' marker atop Chess's head when the smoke dispersed. 

Ferid was on the ground, coughing and clapping and bleeding. "That was amazing, I knew I could count on you guys to save me!" He chuckled, despite being on the verge of dying, he was still laughing. He really was insane. Crowley rolled his eyes and gestured Lest to follow him. "Well to be fair, you threw yourself into the enemy without a plan. You're lucky that she panicked or else you wouldn't stand a chance with the veteran players." The sniper warned, helping him off the ground. As the three men limped over to the massive rock that Krul was peacefully sleeping behind of, Ferid laughed at Crowley's comment. "Oh don't be silly, I'm a veteran player myself, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Besides, I have this." He took out a pink-handled dagger. 

Lest rolled his eyes just like Crowley did earlier. "You should probably return that to Krul. She'll kill you when she wakes up." He warned. That was true, the pink bunny didn't like her things being shared, especially if it's with an idiot by the name of Ferid Bathory. But even to Lest's justice, Ferid's counted was quite clever. "To be fair, Lest Karr, she did steal my photon sword without permission to defend herself and I guess me too." He started. Both Crowley and Lest knew Already what he wanted to say. "So therefore, by using her dagger, I not only had a backup plan to protect myself but also to protect Krul and you guys! If I didn't take her out, we'd all be dead!" He chimed. 

The sniper sighed, well worse logic ever but whatever, they didn't have time to deal with this craziness. "Come on, do you think we'd let ourselves die in the hands on that amateur?" He phrased. Ferid shrugged and took out his medkits, "I don't know, maybe?" He chuckled again and as he was about go apply a medkit to his bleeding chest. There was a ruffle coming from behind the rock they were all sitting on. Crowley's ears perked up and he placed his hand on his pistol. "Enemy team?" He whispered. The ruffle got even louder and this time, Crowley and Lest became anxious. They didn't know whether Ferid cared that they might be watched but who knows. Then finally, 

"Ouch..." a groan escaped the newly awaken pink bunny queen. She rubbed her head and blinked a few times when she saw Ferid all wounded up. "Woah. What happened to you?" She asked, it was a half of concern and disappointment honestly. Half of her wanted to know how the battle went but the other half didn't want to know what dumb mistake triggered his injuries. Ferid put aside his medkit to open his arms to hug the pink queen. "Krul dearest! I'm so happy you're awake!" He bounced up in the air. But Krul snarled at him before avoiding his hug and grabbed the medkits on the rock. She stabbed him in the arm with two of them, two should be enough to bring his health bar to 80%. "Think about healing yourself first." She reminded. What was this? She was teaching him the basics of battle all over again? 

When his health rose and rose, he hugged her waist. "Why thank you!" He thanked her for taking care of him like the small brat he was. Krul sighed and sat beside him before she was called over by Crowley. "Here, you dropped this." He handed the two players their two respective items. He had picked them up when he was called to battle by the silver maniac. He handed Krul her terminal scan and Ferid his photon sword. The two thanked him respectively before a blast of questions was targeted for the pink bunny. "So how many mes kits did you use to heal my injuries anyways?" She asked first. 

Ferid was the one who healed her, therefore he knew the exact number. "I used two! Why, wanted to waste your last medkit? It'll be easier for all the other players to kill you in that case, even I could!, he teased, well more like foreshadowed. Only Crowley was the one who noticed the heavy hint and he coughed in another direction. Krul rolled her eyes and laid her back on the bloody rock again. Well that was one intense battle. She rolled her massive sleeve up and checked her wrist watch. "It's 5:20PM." She remarked with a bored or neutral expression on her lips. Lest crossed his arms and thought for a bit. "So hey, why did you pass out when you fell? I thought this game blocked out all contact to the real world." The red and white haired boy inquired. But Krul only replied: "No idea honestly." 

As KFLC began showing their true colours and won their battles with KKHC, they remained in the same spot for the next 5 minutes to recover and refill their guns before moving locations to hopefully find more teams to massacre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Ahhhhh and here's chapter 7 of Seraph Squads! Hope you all liked it as much as I enjoyed coming up with the conflict between KKHC and KFLC! But to be fair, after Krul's sacrifice, I had no idea what to write for the battle. In my original notes, I gave myself the prompt to "Ferid gets hurt but gets saved by Crowley and Lest before getting healed by Krul." I wrote as much as my brain could while respecting my prompt. Though I do believe that the way that Ferid injured himself really badly was kind of idiotic. Originally, Krul wasn't supposed to be knocked out, it was Ferid supposed to be on the verge of death however, I wanted to develop Ferid and Krul's relationship more as well as introduce in Lest's real thoughts about his teammates. 
> 
> The way Crowley and Lest saved him was by a plasma grenade however in my original ideas, I expected a big of pistol gunfire coming from the two KFLC members and when Krul would heal Ferid, it's because she would be completely awake. Oh well, I had fun writing the battle either way! Hope you guys don't mind I changed so much from my original ideas! Should I have kept some of them? Tell me down below! Cya in chapter 8 and oh my gosh, I forgot to mention that it's been FOREVER since I didn't write about KFLC! I miss these main characters so much!! And it's a bad sad because spoiler-alert, they won't be getting any cameos until chapter 11!


	8. The greatest team yet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The progenitors’ first fight with an amateur duo

When it was 5:245PM, the Shinoa squad took a break by a tunnel. They figured it was a good hideout spot and the orange lights were bright enough to detect if any opposing teams were coming on the other end of the tunnel. But either way, the team leader assigned Kimizuki, the twin blades user and Mitsuba, the gigantic axe user, on the other side. That way, they can fix any consistencies in their plan as they stayed by the tunnel. The purple haired girl sighed as she took another sip from her water bottle. People don't get hungry nor thirsty in 'Seraph of the end' but it just felt realistic as she came from a gymnastics team in real life. She glanced to her side where she heard bickering between her two comrades. 

"Awww Mika, you drank from my bottle again!" Yuu complained as he lifted a grey bottle in the air. Mika fixed his gloves and gave him a questionable look.   
He drank from Yuu's bottle? Uh no, he was pretty sure he was mistaken. Well, he had to tell his friend about it or else teams would find this place due to his noisy complaining. But that's what funny with Yuuichiro, he was so obnoxiously loud for no apparent reason. It may not seem apparent to the boy himself but whenever he was being dumb like usual, it made his whole team smile.   
Well it couldn't be helped, Mikaela could already feel Shinoa throwing dagger-like looks to him from behind if he didn't get Yuu to shut up. Pointing at the bottle, Mika said: "Uh no? That's my bottle, look again." 

Yuu whined and turned the bottle to show a ribbon sticker, Mika's eyes grew wide and his cheeks flushed in deep red. "We all agreed that green would be my colour! See? You drank from my bottle!" He opened the cap and tilted the bottle upside down to reveal that little droplets were the only thing remaining.   
By the way the blonde saw it, time seemed to stop and that those droplets were the small pellets of sand slowly dropping down to the empty side of an hourglass. There was an awkward silence between the two boys as Mika began to laugh in embarrassment. "Oh whoops, that's my bad! I didn't mean to, Yuu-chan..." he muttered that last part. 

The black haired boy sighed and put away his now empty bottle back in the team's ressource bag. It was usually carried by Kimizuki but as they were on break, he had set the bag down for everyone to refresh themselves. Mika shook his head to himself and approached the book before pulling out the bottle—his bottle, the one with the light blue sticker and handed it to Yuu apologetically.   
"I'm really sorry for drinking out of your bottle, here you can take mine." He told the boy. Staring at the given bottle to him for a few moments, Yuu's smile rekindled and he gladly grabbed it. "Thanks Mika!" He chimed and opened the cap of it. Mika just kind of laughed seeing his friend drink out of his bottle. 

Shinoa stood you and began walking to the centre of the cave. "5:30PM everyone." She told her team quietly, she took out the satellite scan and earned a few interested looks from her team members. Yoichi put his binoculars down and gave Shinoa a sorry look. "What does that mean again?" He wondered. Well it was to forget honestly, in a place like 'Seraph Squads', the heat of the battle mattered the most and you always had to keep your eyes peeled in case anyone here tried anything funny. Kimizuki though, wasn't having it. "Did you seriously forget? That's when scan starts." He responded impatiently but didn't bother to turn his head to look at Yoichi. One wrong move and someone can end up attacking them, he had to be on the lookout. 

Yoichi wiped his forehead as Shinoa too, started looking at him with a disappointed look. "Sorry.." he apologized with a small smile. The purple haired girl shook her head off as a "whatever" gesture and opened the scan up to view the world map. The pixels loaded up and when the results came in, they didn't look any different than what she imagined, no changes were drastic enough to make her panic. "So first of all, Progenitors seems to be going after us." She claimed. The one who immediately reacted was Yuu, he lowered himself down to get closer to the shown map. "Huh? Why do you think that?" He questioned. Shinoa pointed at their dot on the map then slid her finger down to all the way where the Porgenitors team was, she crossed several pieces of pathways. "We've closed off some distance but see look how their dot is the closest to ours." She made a good point. 

After detecting that the Shinoa squad would be in the city, Siga Madu decided rather foolishly to go after them. Then the wild goose chase began. Shinoa knew that something like this would happen from all the times that they've been followed during personal missions so she immediately decided to move locations to earn some distance between the two teams. "Then in that case," started Mitsuba as she twirled her axe. "We need to prepare ourselves for battle." She said, thus Shinoa nodded without another word. Mika, who was on Shinoa's other side, pointed at the Progenitors' spot. "But they're still in the forests and plus, they're only four members. We're six. We can totally outnumber them." He said confidently. 

However, overhearing his claim, Kimizuki shook his head. "No that's incorrect, we're just two members more than them but I can already tell that they're a clever team for making it this far into the tournament." The pink haired boy replied. A small 'Hmm' was heard from the blonde boy before his finger tapped on the 'Progenitors' dot. His suspicions were raised when a particular number popped up near the words: "teams killed". There was zero, Siga Madu's team had participated in zero killings so far, it made Mika laugh as Kimizuki's statement was technically false. "Bunch of cowards, if you asked me!" He replied to Kimizuki as the latter turned his head around for the first time. It was for context—to see how the embarrassing number popped in his view, plus, it was rather quick thanks to his far-sight glasses. 

"Maybe they didn't come here to kill teams." Shinoa stood up and practically defended Kimizuki's case. Yuu tilted his head as his team leader began to speak. "Eh? Then what's the point if you don't kill teams? Isn't that what SS is all about?" He questioned. Shinoa shook her head at that. "Not entirely, SS could be taken in many different ways around here. We came here to let out our blood rage on virtual players and work on our teammate as well," 

"It's your fault that the coach yelled at us again! You should have listened to what coach said about your position in the routine!" scolded a teenaged Mitsuba several months ago—when she first met up with Shinoa and the rest of the gymnastics team. The purple haired girl who wore a bow, got up from the ground and shook her head with a desperate look on her face. "No Mitsu! I did! I just—I think I didn't get enough sleep last night..." Shinoa apologized. A few minutes into their argument, the coach returned with water bottles for everyone. "Hey, try playing a game all together, one that requires teamwork!" The coach winked at the two girls. 

"There's other players who have come here to improve their skills," 

Rewinding the clocks a bit into this competition, a boy, quite short that he was the height of Lest and Krul, turned his head back and faced an individual who was pressed behind a tree the entire fight. "You know Chess, you could have shot too." He mentioned. With a disappointed look, "No, that's okay. Maybe next time." She whispered, putting away her binoculars.

Shinoa took a deep breath. "There are also players who are just here to play against friends of theirs by being in different teams. Or maybe betray them," 

In an alleyway at the start of the evening, A sigh escaped a black haired man as he brought his hand forward to shake Ferid's. A relieved smile was fixed on the eccentric man. "I'm glad you agreed to help me out!" He chimed happily. But the other man shushed him. "Quiet, someone can hear us. Now, explain to me the plan." He ordered sharply. Ferid let go of his hand and bowed down dramatically. "You'll love it, Guren. Really." 

Feeling as if she lost her comrades' attention with this tedious point of hers, she chuckled and shrugged amusingly, "But there's some teams who I don't know what the hell they're doing!" She laughed. 

Yuu and Mika looked at eachother before nodding, well that was the end of that little ramble. Guess the black haired boy learned never to mention pointless questions like these ever again or else Shinoa will give them all a small spontaneous presentation of her own. It was funny honestly, how she was so confident and less awkward whenever she presented them something in game than in real life. Changing the subjects a bit, Mika stood up and walked over to the other end of the map, it was in a forest. "Speaking of which, theres Krul's team who is still alive." He mentioned to everybody. 

Yoichi shivered deep down as the murderous KFLC came up in his mind. When his team had encountered Krul and Crowley in the first SS, the small vampire queen had terrified him so much that day, until of course he met the lovely woman wth braided pink hair one day along with his gymnastics team. He didn't expect that the woman: Krul Tepes was as deadly as the pink devil herself. Sure they had the same names and same appearance but still...  
"Do we really need to fight her?" He asked. Mika and Shinoa blinked again the question. If they weren't gonna fight Krul, what's the point? Half of the reason why they registered was because they wanted to fight Krul Tepes again. 

"Well if we do manage to run into them, that is." spoke Mitsuba from her end. Shinoa and the others, including Yoichi turned to her. What was that? Abandon everything and play the game as if Krul and her tomates are just a deadly team you happen to know about? Receiving confused looks, the pigtailed girl laughed at their stupid faces. "What? We can't force it if we don't bump into them." She explained with even more laughter. As arguments happened between Yuu, Mika and Mitsuba, Shinoa frowned and twirled her finger around their own dot. It captured Yoichi's attention and he asked what's wrong. 

"My question is, why did the Progenitors stop in place? Why didn't they continue to head straight for us? They're just sitting still in the middle of a forest."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
A bit lower down in the map, in the forests, there was gunfight going on. "Bahahah! Just go easy on them, they don't know what they're doing!" laughed a man with spread seraph wings. He was standing in the middle of the open, with opened arms. He was not at all armed, there were just plasma grenades dangling down from the side of his robes. Judging from his enemies, they could easily shoot down those grenades and make the whole team explode. However, the pair the Progenitors were fighting against, couldn't find themselves capable of shooting those small spheres. 

"You are my soldiers, go forth!" continued Siga Madu as he stretched an arm forward and pointed at the two players hiding away in the bushes. Siga Madu had two soldiers, a tanned man with dirty blonde hair as well as a pale man with misleading black eyes. "Um, why did you only allow us to kill them with our vampiric cursed gear set? We would have finished the job quicker if you gave us all of our guns." Rigr Stafford pointed out with a big smile. Cursed gear was different from vampiric cursed gear. Cursed gear was for some reason préférée by the Narumi, Guren and Shinoa squad, saying that it's not as overrated as vampiric cursed gear. That set is composed of many weapons, such as katanas, blades, bows, scythes, axes, spears and tridents. Cursed gear practices magic and is response for the talismans, wards and gear created entirely by magic. 

Now for the latter, Mika actually owns a vampiric cursed gear sword. It's called a "Blood Rose" sword, as a rose's torn is wrapped around the blonde's hand. Vampiric gear works very differently for any weapon actually since they are strengthened when the weapon eats away at the player's HP. The swords are made differently, the blade size and how it pierces down on the user's HP. About that, Crowley, Ferid and Lest owns vampiric gear except they call their weapons "photon swords" or "lightswords" since it's more practical and short to say. It was obvious now that most teams liked vampiric cursed gear.

Explanations aside, Siga Madu was exhausted by Rigr Stafford's endless yapping. It was always him that talked back whenever Siga Madu gave orders.   
Whether it was in real life or in game, the boss was tired of it. Looking Rigr straight in the eye, he narrowed his eyes and the latter could have sworn his eyes go fully white,

"If you do not stop right now, I will personally kill you off and that way, playtime will be over for you." 

"Okay I got the message First-"

Ky Luc, the trainee, had no idea whether to say something or not, however by the sigh that Urd Geales gave him, he remained silent. It was best not to interrupt Rigr Stafford and Siga Madu whenever they were as deadly as snakes right now. The brown haired boy was about to examine his vampiric cursed gear, a regular sword, he was halted by his team leader's beaming voice.   
"You better keep your mouth shut next time. Now then! The enemy looks easy to beat, go ahead." Siga Madu snickered. 

The battle they were fighting against was with a team called "LR", a duo between two pale men, one had blue hair and the other had black hair with a kind of emo-look. Urd Geales looked at them indifferently as they continued to shoot bullets from their AK-47s' at the Progenitors. "Well what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Rigr prompted his brother and the trainee to charge ahead. Ky Luc looked nervous and kind of unprepared? What was he supposed to do? 

He was called by his boss Siga Madu onto the game one evening and until now, they didn't have any battles. The man looked at Siga Madu apologetically, "M-M' lord...F-Frankly, I-I don't know what to do!" He laughed to make things seem less awkward. Urd and Rigr both looked at the trainee, both with different expressions. Urd was neutral and Rigr was smiling, like the creep he was. 

"How do you feel right now Ky?" Siga asked.

"I-I'm about to pee my pants right now!"

The black haired man as well as the team leader laughed at the trainee's comment.   
"There there, it's alright, you can sit this battle out if you want." Siga suggested. What? Sit this battle out when they weren't fighting since the past hour. Ky didn't exactly know what to do, but he didn't want to sit out on his first ever fight.  
"No no! I'll help them out!" He gulped and raised his blade to glare at the two enemies. Inside, he was laughing at himself. 'What have I gotten myself into?' He thought. 

Siga spread out his massive wings and with a 'shoo' gesture, "Right, well, I'll leave you to it. Those two look easy so I won't step in." He said, walking off to take cover.  
Well, not a place in which he is shielded from the fight completely. He wanted to see his team in action and correct their faults after the battle. So it was better if he hid behind a tree or something. Despite his massive wings sticking out, he knew that "LR" wouldn't go after him when he's protected by a trio of staunch soldiers.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"I think I'm running out of bullets." said the one with black hair in the most monochrome voice someone could ever imagine. This was René Simm, the one who looked foremost like an emo. They were the ones up against the progenitors and those who carried around those AK-47s'. Luckily, his comrade in front of him, handed him a spare magazine. It was Lacus Welt, the blue haired player. "Here, it seems that we have a tough enemy on our hands." He claimed quietly.

René nodded as he refilled his gun once more with the magazine that Lacus handed him. "They aren't charging or anything. The one who's just boasting around is that man with the fat wings." He said. Lacus continued to shoot at the three players who chose to stand perfectly still. "This is boring, why aren't they attacking?" He muttered as he adjusted his aim. 

'Bang' 

A swift bullet missed Ky's ear by a hair's breadth. The victim squeaked quietly and Urd shushed to stand still. 

"Hold the line." 

"But he almost shot my face!" Ky whined back. 

Rigr yawned and brought his vampiric cursed gear to his hands and wrapped it around them. They were solid sharp chains. "Well I agree with the newbie, I don't wanna die by a glorious shot of theirs." He started before looking at his two comrades, in which one was his brother. "I want Siga Madu to praise me for killing those two over there." He laughed. There was a minute of silence, well honestly, the two felt uncomfortable.

Rigr Stafford was laughing to himself, muttering possibilities that Siga Madu might praise him if he finished the job off rather quickly. But it wasn't just that, his eyes were widened out and a big smile covered his face. Urd inhaled and pointed at the two enemies hiding away in a bush.   
"Alright then, let's fight those two already." He decided and Rigr replied with a short: "Awesome! I knew you'd come around, brother!" 

So then, the three players from Progenitors charged straight for Lacus and René, swords in hands. To be honest, Ky Luc had no idea what he was doing but with hitched breath, he followed his superiors. 'Alright..I can do this..' he thought to himself as he felt the adrenaline run wild inside of him. It may just be a game...but the way that it's designed—the amusphere, he means, if just makes everything seem so...real...supernatural, even? 

"Oh crap, René! They're coming!" panicked Lacus as he began to shoot at the sprinting three. Urd glared at the muzzle of the enemy's gun and ran even faster. He clenched his sword's handle and with unforgettable words, "Sword, drink my blood." He whispered. 

A red aura flashed from the blade in Urd's hands. Siga Madu, who was watching afar, looked at the top left of his screen where he saw Urd's HP slowly decrease.   
"Oh haha! There he goes!" He exclaimed in excitement. Urd leaped up in the air and with a striking blow, he slashed the bush in front of Lacus and René. The two looked absolutely mortified as the enemies' talents exceeded before them. 

The bush burned into debris and Urd and his team walked through the flames preparing to fly to the red-lead skies.   
But Lacus and René didn't give up despite the deadly eyes shot at them by the other team. They pulled themselves back, earning a bit of distance between the enemy team and themselves then the trigger was squeezed, they began firing once more. A rain of bullets was up ahead but the team seemed stoic compared to these tiny futile things. 

"Ouch!" cried Ky Luc as a bullet jabbed into his stomach. He tried to block it with his sword however, but failed to. Urd, who immediately stepped in front of his injured comrade, asked from front. "That's okay. Are you alright though?" He inquired. Was he alright though? Usually in real life, a blow to the stomach was the most painful thing one can imagine. It was quite the vital spot as well but here in 'Seraph of the end', Ky didn't feel himself dying from the shot though. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'll just apply a medkit." He replied.

"Meanwhile, Rigr?" Urd called for his ludicrous brother. But was quite appalled when he received no response from behind him. "Rigr?" He called again and this time around, decided to turn around, exposing his back to the enemies. Lacus and René noticed that and used it as an advantage. The blue haired boy growled and shot at the brown skinned player's back. Well not really. 

"Sword," 

"Hm! I wouldn't try outsmarting my brother if I were you!"   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Urd turned around just in time to completely block out the attack and cut through the swarm of bullets. "Guk!" His eyes widened to the sight of a murderous-looking Rigr behind the two players.   
He snickered and lifted them up by the throat with his chains. An endless night of chains sprouting from his back. 

Lacus and René were raised to the red skies and struggled to get back down.   
"You bastard.." René screeched out, his gloved plans trying to untangle things such as a chain, it was merely impossible.   
Rigr laughed and walked over to Urd and Ky Luc, whose health was been raised back to 80%. He messed around with the victims bound to his chains, tossing them over him and back. As far as he's concerned, he may as well choke them since his chains were wrapped around their necks. "Look brother, I saved you, didn't I?" 

Ky looked at the victims, trapped in Rigr's chains, helplessly trying to break away.   
He felt a bit sick to the stomach seeing how the chains were practically ripping their necks open. The screaming didn't help either, it was clear that this was the battle showcased at the bar right now.   
Just look at the Progenitors, revealing their true colours out to the public. Ky was terrified for his life but was somewhat thrilled deep inside, Urd was indifferent and emotionless, per say and Rigr was having the time of his life, taunting the poor "LR" duo.

But what was Siga Madu doing the entire time? Just watching? It kind of disappointed the spectators that the team leader to this gruesome team wasn't even doing anything himself. He just chuckled and watched attentively. 

"Stop that, Rigr. Just kill them already." Urd's serious voice resonated between the players present. 

Rigr pouted, shaking Lacus and René with his chains, "Awww but they're having fun. Plus, I'm bored and they're better playmates then all of you guys." He gave such an excuse. Even Siga Madu and Urd Geales grew infuriated with that. As for Ky Luc, he just whimpered and apologized for his lack of teamwork in battle. 

"Are you kidding me?" 

"Rigr, just kill them." 

Urd and Siga Madu both said respectively.   
~~~~~~~~~  
The black haired man looked at "LR" with a furious look before he growled. The reaction that a child would give after being scolded by family members. "Ugh fine, you guys are no fun." He told his teammates before he shrugged. His chains were raised as high as possible, which is the height of a pine tree then with his fangs beared out, "Well this is unfortunate for them!" 

The chains let go of the two bodies in its hold. Lacus and René had to watch with wide eyes how they were mercilessly dropped from the skies....

and into the grassy grounds.

Blood was splattered all over as the players' heads broke open, Rigr laughed grandiosely as he walked towards his teammates among the blood rain.   
"Looks like we've won!" He claimed, raising his bloody hands up in the air as if he's some saint. 

Two 'DEAD' markers lit up atop their heads. 

With this easy fight finished, Rigr sighed in relief. In fact, the fight was way too easy. Urd cleaned some blood off his uniform and Ky Luc trembled in place. "Did....you have fun Lord Stafford?" The trainee questioned. The black haired man nodded, but it was to mainly fool the newbie's eyes. No, he did not enjoy this fight at all, too easy. 

Too boring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello! Thank you for reading this quite short chapter of Seraph Squads!   
> I didn't have much to work with since it was mainly a Shinoa squad checkup and Progenitors' first fight(now that I look back, I realized that I forgot that two teams were supposed to ambush the Progenitors. Don’t worry, the original idea will be moved to chapter 9 instead) Now doesn't Saito remind you all of Ferid? Hah. That was clearly my intention and honestly, the interactions between him and Urd were fun to write about. The fight too, though I felt like something was missing. In my prompts for this chapter, I wanted to show that people shouldn't mess with the Progenitors' team but I don't think that it was well written? As far as I'm concerned, only Urd and Rigr seemed the terrifying ones, but just wait until you see what Siga can do!


	9. Escapade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two teams come charging in to hopefully earn the glory of defeating the progenitors, however another fight goes on between the Shinoa squad and “MZEF” with some pretty disappointing results

Just when they thought that their worries were over, Siga Madu spotted in the distance, two teams charging straight for them. "Well this is trouble." He blinked, putting away his binoculars. The teams were both consisted of 6 teammates each which caused 12 players to come charging for the Progenitors. The first team was called "KIIMAV" in which was an abbreviation for a kennel somewhere in Japan. Their team was a bunch of girls, all preppy-looking and adorable. 

Their uniforms were pink fluffy coats with socks as boots. They had cat ears and different sets of guns. "The progenitors are right up ahead! Atsuki, get your machine gun ready!" The team leader was a short pink haired cat girl, who carried two daggers in her hands. Well introductions weren't bad enough, the team leader was Miyami Nekona. She was the one with the baby blue hair tied up in ponytails with white cat ears. Her weapon of choice was poisoned-tipped daggers. 

Then there was the machine gunner, Atsuki Nanami. She was a tall woman with long blonde hair and prim red lips. She had white with red tipped cat ears. She was also sort of the second in command of Miyami ever died in battle. In real life, she has experience in cooking and singing. She's usually the main chef whenever they hung out in 'Seraph of the end'.

Next was Makoto Mikamoto. Despite the boy name, she's a short brown haired little girl with brown cat ears. She's the team's main light sword user and gets along well with Miyami since they both use blades.   
Since she's quite small, smaller than Miyami, she can spot incoming enemies by running off and hiding away. 

Heta Jinsen was the team's assault rifle lover. She was the one in the team who loved just charging into battles. Some of her members even commented that in game she's quite insane and direct. Compared to in real life, where she's the sweetest thing ever. 

The two other members are sniper twins. Annabella and Yuki Tsubasa. Both incredibly short and both have decent aim. These girls work at "Iyushii Inamoto Miyagi Adventure Zoo Kennel." The workplace has no relation to guns at all but here were these girls playing 'Seraph of the end'. At first it was just a habit of Miyami to play this game after work until she became obsessed to the point where she talked about her accomplishments to her friends. Eventually "KIIMAV" was formed and they're here now. 

Still running, Atsuki loaded her machine gun and pointed it to Urd Geales. "Firing now!" She yelled as a horde of bullets was fired to Urd. What was particular for the girls here was that Urd didn't even budge a step. Well that's because none of the bullets are hitting them. The only one pretending to dodge the bullets was the eccentric Rigr Stafford. "Woo! Oh so close! That one got me!" He jumped over about three bullets.

Urd sighed, "So Siga Madu," he called over for his hiding team leader.

"Not gonna appear again?"  
~~~~~~~~  
Siga Madu, still stayed peering against the tree trunk, "What? No, you guys got this. The enemy is too easy!" He grumbled. Well it seemed that Siga Madu was quite picky on who to fight in this game. He wanted strong enemies that actually dealt damage to him whenever he fought against them. His ideals are the powerhouse teams. Like the Guren, Shinoa squad and KFLC. 

Urd, who was honestly so done with his boss's abandonment, just looked over at Ky Luc and the cheeky Rigr. "So what? Am I supposed to make a plan for all of you guys now?" He questioned. The black haired man chimed, dodging and ducking from the attack. "Oh ho ho, I guess so!"   
He replied generally happy as always. Urd could have cursed out his team leader for not coming out of hiding and helping his own team but people nearby like Rigr would absolutely destroy him. 

"In this case, Ky, follow me and Rigr, you know how to pretty much attack anyone. Take care of the insect-looking gang over there." The blonde haired boy assigned his brother to attack the male team instead of the girls. He knew that Rigr, since they were banned from using their guns, would go really really rough on the girls. But what was it with that rule? "Don't hit girls." Well, not in this game. So the man wouldn't feel bad about slaughtering the heck out of the incoming teams. 

The insect team was called "ARA" they were a small squad from France. It was incredibly how a game like 'Seraph of the end' reached countries all over the world.   
These six men were enthusiasts of bugs. Each of them liked a specific type of bug and their weapons were all the same however. They were all assault rifle users.  
The team leader was named James Blanc and he was the one that planned for his teammates to charge at the same time as team "KIIMAV". 

Rigr, satisfied with his orders, nodded and looked down on the chains loosely wrapped around his pale fingers. "Alright~!" He chimed at Urd and raced to the team "ARA". Seeing the black haired man charging straight for them, the team leader halted in his movements and cried out: "Collin, now! Yes yes!" He had a heavy French accent but his comrades understood either way. "ARA" were the first three letters of the French word: "Araignée" which means "spider". 

The member of the team named "Collin" nodded at his leader's orders and threw two plasma grenades back at Rigr Stafford. The man halted and his eyes widened in thrill and excitement. "Awesome! That's gonna be a blast!" He cried out, truly excited to let his mind run loose on solutions to save himself. "How do I escape this?! Do I jump or fight?! Hahahaha! This is so much fun!" He decided to go for the latter instead. 

Lines of chains charged loose form his back and targeted the six team members.   
"Oh crap! This guy is crazy!" Collin breathed out, searching his pockets for more plasma grenades. Clearly two of them weren't enough to stop the Stafford monster from attacking them. James Blanc growled and began to fire from his assault rifle. "Dammit, he's gonna kill us all. He's crazy!" He repeated. 

Rigr spread out his arms and chuckled.   
"What no? How rude, I'm not crazy at all." He whispered. The chains broke loose once more and pierced into one of the frontline members. It was Renaud that took the hit. "I-I'm hit!" The man with the ladybug mask groaned as he fell over to the side. Collin and James rushed over to his side while the team leader ordered the rest of his team to continue firing. The chain was still deeply stabbed within their team member but the leader couldn't understand why, his health was decreasing so quickly. 

"We need to get the chain out of him! He's going to die!" panicked Collin. James nodded, yes they should get the chain out of his team member. The leader tried to pull the chain out, only to hear Renaud's piercing screams and Rigr's giggles. It honestly disturbed the team how the black haired enemy was laughing—mocking them. James let go of the chain with a loud growl and stood back up to face Rigr. "You do not get to laugh at me like a fool! I don't know how to stop him from dying!" He cried out at the chain-armed player. 

Rigr chuckled and pointed at the chain inside of Renaud, it was slowly turning red. Collin and James caught it. 

"Wha-? But what is happening?"

The chains behind Rigr's back and the ones around his hands flowed red.   
The man smiled fiercely. 

"Ah that feels better, I needed more HP anyways." He laughed. 

A 'DEAD' marker popped up on top of Renaud's head as all the HP he had on his avatar was generously given to Rigr.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
On the other end with the trainee and Urd, they had the mission to take care of "KIIMAV". They ran into the forests, a bit south-west from where Siga Madu was and charged into the bushes. "You're still following me, right Ky?" muttered Urd through his communicator. They had separated when they dispersed into the forests. Urd was in a bush and Ky was in a tree. 

The trainee, who was trembling and sitting atop the branch, nodded. "Y-Yeah...any sign of them?" He asked quietly through the communicator. The dark-skinned boy put away his binoculars in the foliage of the bush and spoke afterwards: "Yup. They're close to you actually. I say we ambush those girls." He said. Now an ambush? That sounds...difficult and stressful, well that was Ky's opinion as a trainee only. "Just tell me what to do, lord Geales.." he replied. 

Urd's eyes lit up. Well he may just have an idea, it won't be pretty one but if they wanted to regroup as quickly as possible, he had to consider it. He shut them and inhaled. "Okay, here's what you have to do..." he briefly explained what Ky Luc had to say and the latter listened attentively.   
It was not at all complex, in which Ky thought it would be. But basically what he had to do was jump down from the trees and impale his sword into the closest member. 

As soon as Ky stepped off the branch,   
he heard an alarming cry from just a few metres under him, "Hey! It's the progenitors! They're gonna attack us!" Yuki Tsubasa warmed her team members.   
The child's cry was so loud that even Urd heard it from where he was. "Dammit.." he growled and had no choice but to rescue Ky Luc from these girls. "Oh no, they spotted me!" The trainee fell off the branch in surprise and immediately got back up on his feet. 

As soon as he did, he saw a machine gun's muzzle pointed at him. "This is trouble.." he muttered and gulped.   
No, he couldn't be a coward once more. Lord Geales and Stafford already fought their way too long just to defend his chicken self. Now he had to try to return the favour to them. He held his sword and crouched down. His red eyes flared a deep red as he stared at the enemies. 

"Sword, drink my blood..." 

"Atsuki, fire!" 

Ky let out a monstrous growl before he charged directly into the rain of gunfire.   
"Impossible!" Atsuki gasped as she steadied the muzzle of her large weapon.   
Miyami facepalmed and took out her poisonous daggers. She had to step in for this one. The pink haired cat stepped out of their hiding spot and leaped out at the enemy. Panicked, Ky began to rethink his actions. 'Oh no, how do I stop her..?' 

He had to use his instincts and so did Miyami, who was armed with the poisoned daggers. 

"Yah!" 

"There we go!"

The trainee swung his hand back when Miyami charged forward and at the last minute, he swung it to the side. Blood splattered into the moment and Miyami lost her balance. Her orange eyes widened as both of them had realized where all the blood came from. 

He had just cut one of her arms off. The poisoned dagger as well as the cut off limb fell to the ground and Miyami fell over. "Damn it!" She screeched was she tried to pin her other dagger into Ky.   
However, he saw it coming and stomped on the thrown dagger with his boot.   
"I do not think so, by the way, I'm sorry about this." He apologized before he lopped her head off with a single cut from his sword. A 'DEAD' marker appeared on top of Miyami Nekoza's head and the leader status was transferred to Atsuki.

All shooting ceased since the team members were too shocked on what had just happened. The trainee had the time to pick up one of the daggers and throw it in the girls' direction. "Girls! Watch out!" The new leader Atsuki, yelled out to her members. The Tsubasa twins screamed in horror and even Makoto had the guts to scream out in horror: "He's using Miyami Neesan's daggers against us!" She felt personally hurt as the rest of the other girls. Though, as much as they felt proud for avoiding the daggers, it was never meant to kill them in the first place. 

"Urd, catch!" yelled out Ky as he was bellowed by Makoto Mikamoto. She was a blade master so Ky felt personally challenged. But this was a sword fight, it would be easier for him. "Fight me you evil man!" cried out Makoto as she swung her blade at Ky. The man ducked down and blocked the incoming attack with his own sword. 

As for the daggers, Urd was running up behind them, he thankfully caught two of the daggers while temporarily keeping his actual sword clenched between his fangs.  
"Snipe them, Yuki, Annabella." Atsuki ordered the snipers to shoot Ky Luc's partner. The twins nodded and positioned their snipers as soon as possible.

"Roger that!"

"No one gets away with killing Neesan!" 

And so, muzzles were now in front of Urd Geales as he was close to reaching his team mate in time. Luckily for the twins, they can't shoot without a bullet line like KKHC and Crowley and Ferid from KFLC.   
Urd saw the lines and easily avoided both coming directly from them. Annabella grunted and refilled as soon as possible.  
However, Yuki's bullet fell onto the bush, she cursed herself for being so clumsy.   
Her small hand was lowered and as she grabbed the bullet, "Yuki! Watch out!" she heard a scream from her sister. 

As soon as Yuki rose her head back up to examine the cause of the scream, she felt herself sit still in place. She couldn't hear the mortified screams all around her but she soon understood what happened. Since from beside her, she saw how Annabella, her twin, fell back at the exact same time as her. 

Rewinding a bit, Urd Geales kept running, his left hand was raised and the blade's edge targeted Yuki. He smiled to himself when he saw how her small head ducked down to pick up the bullet she so foolishly dropped. 'Always keep your eyes upwards.' He muttered and threw the dagger, calculating exactly the right time to throw it. An instant bullseye to the forehead.

The same happened to Annabella Tsubasa as the right dagger escaped his right hand as well. Now with both of his hands freed again, he removed the blade from his mouth and pounced on the bush, scaring the two last members. Ky Luc handled Makoto. He swung at her arms and exposed legs, causing loads of huge cuts and he kind of gagged due to the puddles of blood escaping from her avatar. Then finally, as Makoto tried to go for his head, Ky hissed and impaled his sword into her neck. He aimed for the head, it was an advantage that she was so much smaller than him, however he missed when she tried to attack him again.

Well whatever, he killed her in the end anyways, why care about missing your target? At least he got the job done.   
He stepped away from the dead body and was met with hostile eyes from Atsuki and Heta. "You guys.." the team leader clenched her fists. Heta was honestly terrified, she didn't move a muscle after seeing the Tsubasa twins die in front of her. Ky approached them and with no smiles, he sent out a quick slash to both of their stomachs. He killed the last two members of "KIIMAV".   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Urd Geales wiped the blood off his coat and huffed. "Good job on the ambush, by the way. Even though you messed up the beginning." He congratulated. Sanity came back to Ky Luc as he looked at lord Geales, overjoyed. "What, really? I did well?" He exclaimed. Urd smiled slightly, the man didn't smile often, so that was a first appreciative move coming from him. Who knew that it would have been given to the trainee who just won a battle? 

"Yes you did very good. Shame Siga Madu couldn't see the whole thing at his angle. But I'll tell him, no worries." He informed Ky Luc. In which the trainee rubbed the back of his head nervously. But he was also really proud of himself for just accomplishing that. To be fair, he didn't know what came over him when he messed up the ambush. Was it an inner rage of not being able to complete something? He didn't know, but man did he wish that feeling would show up more often in battles. 

"Now come on, let's go back to my brother and see if he killed that spider team already." 

"Yes m'lord, roger that!" chimed an ecstatic brown haired player.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
When Urd and Ky Luc left the forests, they had noticed that Siga Madu was no longer in hiding anymore. Huh? Did he go back to where Rigr was? Well no time to waste, it was dangerous to be separated from one another when three teams already tried to attack them. The lands where they were previously fighting on has been turned into a bloody wasteland. It shocked the trainee the first time but that was how it was in this game. Bloody murder.

At the scene, both Siga Madu and Rigr Stafford were present, both were smiling happily as all six members of "ARA" lay unmoving in the puddles of blood. Ky Luc gulped, of course Rigr had always been as strange as Ferid Bathory, maybe even stranger but seeing his generous and joyful boss smiling alongside that black haired man? Was something off or...did he truly miss something vital about these three individuals standing before him? 

"We eliminated "KIIMAV". What now?" Urd's calm and serious voice was once again heard. The two team members looked at him, looking pleased. 

"As you can see, Rigr here did a good job finishing these members off quickly." Siga said, one of his sandals stepping on one of the heads on the ground, crushing it further down into the ground. 

It honestly disturbed Ky Luc. Wow Shikama Doji was definitely different than when he is seen in the Amusphere office. Then again, he'd love to meet the in game Krul Tepes, Ferid Bathory, Lest Karr and Crowley Eusford. Were they just as different? Deadly even? 

From what he concluded, Siga Madu was sadistic, Rigr was insane and Urd was strategic. But what was he? He acted exactly as coward and loyal to when he is in front of his superiors. He'd have to be respectful around Tepes and Karr too...

"Anyways, that's the fight fine. Woo." Siga Madu took out the satellite scan to check the time in case they missed a scan or something. Never knew when more teams would be sneaking up on them. Urd, Rigr and Ky took the time to take a break and retrieve their guns from their inventories.   
Siga Madu had restricted them to all weapons except their vampiric cursed gear. It was currently 5:35PM. 

The black haired man stored away his chains and welcomed back his massive machine gun so missed. "Ah there! Finally, it's so good to see you again!" The man joyfully chimed, holding the gun by the handle and giving the muzzle a good inspection. Ky Luc took out his dual pistols and stored them onto his holsters. "Well what do you think we should do now, team leader?" he asked. 

The team leader put away his terminal scan and was silent for a bit, he glanced up at the sky and the three boys thought he had given up on answering the question. However with a voice so confident, he responded: "Oh we take a break from fighting! You guys are exhausted, right?" 

No one decided to question his decisions despite how false it was. People shouldn't assume things.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Somewhere else, definitely far away from where the Progenitors were, was a two paired team. An old man with ashen hair as well as an eye patch. He was accompanied with a punk-looking son of his. "So dad, why did you ask me to play this game for you? I didn't think you'd interested in a gun game anyways." Seishiro Hiiragi wondered, he set aside his pump shotgun, the Winchester super X pump. 

The father and team leader of the team carried out a katana, Mossberg 500 and several plasma grenades. He put away the terminal scan with a satisfied smile.   
"Kureto and Shinya are too busy with their actual jobs to play games, Mahiru is fulfilling her idol career and I doubt she wants anything to screw up her collaboration with the Ichinose agency. Then there's Shinoa who needs to focus on schoolwork." He explained roughly.   
Seishiro lifted his gun up with a disappointed look and aimed it at Tenri Hiiragi. His father was completely off guard. 

"Oh what a shame. Say, what's up with those guys then?" The punk pump user pointed out at the two monochrome-looking players behind them. They were the "Hiiragi Clan"'s teammates. If Seishiro were to shoot now, he'd be practically killing off his teammates. Tenri looked at the two players behind them, who were standing perfectly still beside the rocks they were sitting on. "Oh those son, are the body guards I hired to help us today." Tenri explained. 

The first guard was all dressed in black and green, the Hiiragi's clan's uniform colours, unaware that the Guren squad already took the colours. Oh well, Tenri did not anticipate to meet Guren not Shinya in this tournament. This team was oblivious that Shinoa and Shinya were even in it and that Kureto was eliminated too early.   
The guard carried out a heavy shotgun along with some grey goggles to rest atop his messy black hair. 

The second one was a bit shorter than the first. It was a chubby teenaged-boy who was dressed in the same attire as the first guard and the two other Hiiragi clan members. Only difference was that he had a light sword in his hands that glowed a deep green. He was way more nervous around Tenri and Seishiro than the first guard and he absolutely hated it. 

Tenri looked at them both with a neutral look. "Say boys, you didn't tell me your names, what are they?" He inquired.

"As long as you guys don't get in my way, we have no problem." Seishiro scoffed. 

"My name is Sergent, sir." The black haired first guard replied confidently.   
Tenri nodded at that, "Good name there, son." 

The brown haired boy hearing that, kind of gulped at that. Oh man was there some pressure between him and Sergent now.   
He was already getting praised for the good names, and what will Tenri Hiiragi think of his? It sounded bizarre but the gamer tag he had was too dear to him to change it. Him and Sergent were from different agencies therefore he had no idea about who he was and where he came from. Worse of all, he didn't know whether Sergent's gaming skills surpassed his. 

Feeling like he was suffocating in this virtual suit, "M-My name is Kingsley, sir!" He exclaimed. The three went silent right before Seishiro proudly mocked: "Bwah? Kingsley? Yeah fits you, since all kings were somewhat oversized at the time." He laughed. Ouch, that kind of hurt. Quite honestly, if this were real life, he'd be a crying mess but thank goodness for the armour covering parts of his face up.

"Nice to have you here battling with us boys." Tenri smiled at the two guards before a long silence filled the team.   
Seishiro was quite pissed off that there were guards with them, Sergent was a statue and Kingsley was a nervous mess.  
It was now 5:39PM. The scan would be starting soon and Tenri would have to decide on a plan eventually.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The Shinoa squad found themselves in another forest once again. Looking at the scan minutes earlier, the team leader had thought that they wouldn't encounter anymore of these woody wonderlands however she learned that one wrong turn that can lead you to a disaster. A disaster this was! Here they were fighting off another attack from "MZEF" which stood for: Mel Stefano, Zane Lindau, Esther Lee and Fuola Honte. 

The Shinoa squad was playing the defensive, the shields of the team were hiding behind tree trunks and the main attackers put off on sniper duty. Shinoa says that there was no need for someone to charge straight on. Laid down on their stomachs on flat rocks, Mika and Yuu looked through their sniper's scopes and fired whenever anyone on the enemy team tried getting close. "Hmmm...I dunno.." the black haired boy pulled the bolt back. 

Shinoa, who was hiding behind the tree and had her bizon gun out, fired several shots to cover for Yuu and Mika who had to refill. "Focus, we can't have them any more closer than 5 metres. They stay behind those rocks and trees." she said.  
It was her strict orders. Since Mika and Yuu weren't attackers in this attack, it would be very life-threatening to have one of those enemies approach them with their offensive guns. 

The gunfire continued for several more minutes until a squeak was heard from beside the purple haired girl. "No! I'm hit!" shouted Mitsuba as she grasped her shoulder and laid down. Whenever you're hit, the best instinct to stay low. The bullets flew over her head and the first to react was the team leader herself. She quickly rushed over and yelped when a bullet tried to hit her in the cheek, it ricocheted off the tree trunk. Too close. 

"Are you alright?" Shinoa grabbed the medkits from Mitsuba's pockets. The blonde nodded and winced as polygram-looking fragments dripped down from her wounded shoulder. "I-I'm good, trust me.." she replied. Meanwhile, the snipers continued their work. Yoichi, the archer, continued to fire green-flamed birds towards the enemy team. "Mitsuba, heal quickly! We need you in case we need a shield!" He pleaded. 

Now with team "MZEF", they were panicking. The team leader: Mel Stefano grunted as he received yet another shot from Yuu or Mika, he couldn't tell. He halted in his movements and laid in fallen leaves. "Ugh, they'll just keep shooting us if we continue." He told the rest of his teammates through communicators.   
Zane Lindau and Esther Lee continued to shoot, ignoring his comment prior to replying afterwards: "What do you mean? We just shot one of their members. The one with the big axe." replied both of them at the same time. 

Mel Stefano shook his head and looked at them in the eye. "No you idiots, that's not the point. Even if we decrease their numbers, WE MAY AS WELL DIE OURSELVES!" He spread the message.   
Now his plea to stop finally earned their attention, they still continued to fire but listened closely to what their leader had to say. Mel took a deep breath. "Listen here, Fuola is already hit and is on the verge of dying. Damn snipers. I say we may have to abandon this one, boys." He declared.

Zane and Esther's eyes widened at the suggestion to retreat. Sure the enemy was stronger than them but shooting Mitsuba in the shoulder already raised their confidences enough to continue fighting the Shinoa squad. "Wha-?! But, whyyyy?" Zane complained. Mel, rushed over to where the three members were and beckoned the injured Fuola to follow, he had 50% of his HP left. 

"Come on! We're running!" Mel shouted as he grabbed Zane's arm. Esther gulped and he glanced at the Shinoa squad one last time before sighing. Yes, they were getting crushed, they had to flee this instant. The "MZEF" team began to run deeper into the forest, Yoichi was the first to notice since he had his cursed gear now out. "Gekkouin." He summoned a spell, his bird-shaped arrows flowed even brighter and were transformed into red phoenixes. "They're getting away!" He shot the arrows. 

Still running, Mel screeched as he saw the red birds flying over his head and crashing straight ahead into tree logs. Dust got in their eyes and they were forced onto the floor. "N-No..!" Fuola stood back up despite his injury and urged his teammates to stand back up too. No, they couldn't die like this, caught by a cursed gear's abilities, it just wasn't fair and took surreal! They would die gladly in the honour of getting shot, but by using magic. The team got back on their feet and did a better job at avoiding the shots from the archer. 

"Someone do something!" Yoichi begged for backup. 

Already hearing his pleads, "Already on it. They won't get away!" promised Yuu as he lifted his sniper and himself off the rocks. He positioned his sniper on his shoulder and began to fire. 

Esther dodged the shots with ease and laughed to himself. 'We may as well survive!' He thought to himself. His team kept running and running away, Yuu's shots were harder and harder to get shot from as they distances themselves. There was now 20 metres between the two teams and Shinoa cursed. 

"Dammit! The cowards!" She pulled out her terminal scan to check for the next scan. It was 5:44PM. They had already missed the scan thanks to this chicken fight. Now they won't know where "MZEF" would be running to due to them using the scan to confirm their locations around them. She could have thrown the terminal scan to the ground. But she refrained. It was no longer an immune object like in SS1. 

Yuu sighed and laid aside his sniper as he looked down in disappointment. Mika came behind him and patted his shoulder.  
"Hey buddy, it's fine.." he assured the black haired boy as both realized that all of his shots missed. 

"Damn! I missed them, I think something's wrong with my choices of potentially becoming a sniper..." he clenched his fists together and growled. He felt like he could have done better with his shooting. But no, he focused on learning sword skills than practice sniping like Shinoa asked as a backup skill. 

But a hand was wrapped around his neck after he had said that. Yuu's mouth was opened and his eyes were widened. Mika smiled at him. 

"I know you'll be able to snipe atleast one person Yuu! I believe in you." He encouraged. 

And the black haired boy's cheeks reddened in surprise and happiness. His eyes lit up and he picked his sniper back up to store back in his inventory. 

"Hehe, thanks Mika!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Aaaaaaaaaa! Here's chapter 9! A very long and lazy chapter if I had to say so myself. I was quite lazy with the fight between the Spider team and Rigr so that's why I kept most details out of the story and instead focused on Ky's time to shine, in which I absolutely loved writing!(don't worry though, Siga Madu will actually fight back in the next few chapters! The climax of SS3 will be coming soon!) 
> 
> I also got lazy as you can see from the Shinoa squad battle, all descriptions were rushed and not many interactions happened between team MZEF. I'll try to do better but honestly, I just wanna get back to writing KFLC- Ahhhhhhh two more chapters left! I'll get working on chapter 10 later today! Goodbye everyone!^^


	10. SSIII Continues!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Seraph Squads III continues, there’s a little checkup on the Progenitors, the Shinoa Squad and team MZEF, the ones who got away

Now that was a close call, stayed any longer and they would have been wiped out. "Wooo! No one is dead?" Mel Stefano panted and stopped his sprint when they reached a few more tree trunks just laying around. He inspected for any wounded teammates in the exception of himself, he knew for a fact that he was alright and still kicking. 

"Wish I was, man I don't know if I could face a team like that again." Fuole Honte said, huffing at his own turn as he stopped running and laid down the fields of fresh green grass. The other teammates from his caught up in a jiffy, not wasting too much time after their big escapade. "Don't say that, we've already   
come so far, we might even win this." Mel Stefano growled at the sudden suggestion of his teammates giving up. 

They wouldn't resign now would they? No, he cannot allow that, he cannot fight alone either. "Well what do we do? Fuola has barely any HP left and he already used up all of his medkits when we were in the city. Anyone have any?" Zane asked around. Fuola felt a tiny tint of red form up on his cheeks as he knew that his teammates would be willing to offer their healing sources for him.

"Ah thank you boys, greatly appreciated." The injured man snickered upon seeing Esther and Mel hand over two medkit cylindres. Of course, he wasn't going to use all four of them but keep the two others he didn't use for later. "Why did we need to surrender anyways?" Zane took a seat near the injured man. Mel sighed, did he not get it? 

"Would you rather all of us to have died back then than be here?" The team leader scolded, not bothering to take a seat down like his three other comrades, who all huddled by the rocks and grass. "To be fair, we were up against a powerhouse team. The chances of us losing was expected from a mile back." Esther pointed out as he lifted his shades. 

Mel shook his head at that, incorrect.   
"More like a draw to me. We managed to shoot one of their comrades and they managed to shoot ours. Pretty fair and no victory just yet." He explained. Esther gave a friendly shrug before turning over to Fuola and Zane Lindau. "What do you say we do now, Mel?" Esther asked once more. Mel Stefano narrowed his eyes as he had just formed a brand new idea in his mind. 

"Simple. We go after another powerhouse team after Fuola has healed up." 

The man ignored all questionable and angry remarks from his comrades. He wanted the glory to be able to take a powerhouse team down.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Lurking around the clearings and making sure to use trees as temporary cover, a magazine of bullets fell beside the newbie of the Progenitors team. Ky Luc sighed impatiently as he picked the fallen magazine back up and placed it on his lap. "Well this isn't good." He commented quietly. 

Siga Madu glanced over curiously to the newbie, he folded his wings and snickered. "Oh what seems to be the matter?" He questioned in a singing tone. Despite them surviving an attack coming from two teams, the team leader didn't seem at all shaken up nor paranoid that they might get attacked again. 

The newbie gulped, trying to stall for time by using a charming smile—of course, he knew very well that it may have no affect on the team leader and Urd Geales. He wasn't too sure even how the eccentric one, Rigr Stafford, would react. However,   
he merely wanted to hide a terrible truth.

In defeat, he rose his head and grabbed the magazine that was on his lap. "Well see, boss, I believe I am running out of mags." He pointed out their little problem with a concerned tone. He was trying to laugh off the thoughts of disappointment appearing on his fellow comrades' faces.  
He was right, which was what hurt the most. 

Urd Geales sighed and placed a hand over his forehead, focusing on shielding his eyes from making contact with Ky Luc's. Siga Madu crossed his arms, not hiding the fact that he was a little bit upset about this whole turn of events.   
As for Rigr, he glanced from the wing-wearing man, to his brother and shot a smirk back at the newbie of the team.

"Oh running out of mags, so soon? Even after such a terrific performance?" The black haired man stood up from the patch of grass he was sitting. Ky's ear slightly twitched at the finishing word from that phrase, was that praise coming from his lord Stafford? Knowing him and his devious tricks, Ky didn't know if he should believe a word from that. But, 

"Unfortunately so, m'lord." 

He replied quietly and gave an apologetic look towards the black haired man who had spoken to him just now. The black haired man giggled quietly and nodded, he began to walk off slowly towards the fields right up ahead. 

Urd Geales narrowed his eyebrows, keeping a close watch on his brother. Rigr was famous for his unpredictable and strange behaviour. He was the type of person to go tumbling down that small hill leading to the fields and yell out for someone to try shooting him down. He couldn't have such a particularity happening right now. 

Therefore, he glanced back at the team leader. He said no words, only waited for what the wing-dressed man had to say about their current situation. They survived an attack from both directions, so what? Siga Madu wanted more battles, more fighting to satisfy his blood thirst.  
Urd sighs, but Siga Madu hasn't gone out to battle. 

No, he was cruel enough to send the three of them and just watch from afar. 

"That's alright, Ky. Hopefully we won't have to fight anymore. Man, this tournament is getting boring," the silver haired player commented, mainly referring to Ky's earlier comment about running out of ammo. Still though, it was a rather unordinary thing that their team leader would say. Or possibly it's referring to him finally battling alongside them? 

Urd shut his eyes, he shouldn't be questioning his team leader no matter how subtle and bizarre he likes to put things. 

As for he newbie, he took a deep breath prior to confidently nodding in his team leader's direction.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Despite letting away that other team, the Shinoa Squad's hands were still full. Located a bit away from the spot where they had their previous fight, the six members were being under attack by a squadron of six as well. 

At least, that's what had happened ten minutes ago. It was now 5:54PM. All six members of the Shinoa squad were alive and well, no injuries whatsoever. Had they been healed during the fight, remains unknown. 

For their enemy team, they were facing against "MEV" it stood for: "Machinima Emporium Veterans". A group of six gun freaks who entered the tournament with nothing but bluff and unprepared training.  
Six was the number they crossed paths with the Shinoa squad, zero was the number that they'd end the fight with. 

The purple haired leader climbed up from a massive rock that she was hiding behind the entire battle. With cold brown eyes, she approached the remaining member of the "MEV" team. Holding her scythe loosely, she stopped at his head.

"Please..." a spiky brown haired player begged as he spat out blood on the rock he was laying pronely on. He was a man of his 40's, rather punk-line as well. He had a white tank top with baggy jeans. For accessories, there was a chain wrapped from his pants' pocket to his left leg. His name was Angie Kiyamuura, a pathetic pistol user. 

Shinoa lifted her scythe up to meet with the defenceless player's neck before lopping it off its body completely. She didn't want to hear any more of this untrained squadron's pleas. She didn't even pay attention if he was the original leader of the team—but she guesses not.   
Sighing, Shinoa stared down at the 'DEAD' lifted marker atop Angie's body. 

"We survived that, surprisingly." The axe-carrying player came up behind her team leader with a flustered look. She was relieved though, don't get her wrong.   
Shinoa didn't turn around, her eyes did dart back over to her curses gear, watching as pixelated blood dripped down from her sharp scythe. "But I thought they'd be quite strong. Sure, they were idiots in many ways." She told Mitsuba, not turning around to face her. 

Mitsuba raised an eyebrow at her comment. "What, so you wanted an actual challenging opponent? We could get crushed, you know?" She wanted to point out. Though, such behaviour only sprouted a small smile to form on Shinoa Hiiragi's lips. She hadn't smiled the whole time during this battle. 

"It's not that I want a challenging fight." simply replied Shinoa. She was brief and subtle as ever, it upsetted Mitsuba gravely. Was their team leader trying to hide tricks or did this battle simply didn't live up to her expectations? She certainly hoped for the latter. 

Appearing from a bush, Mikaela stepped out and made his way towards the two girls on his team. He rose his wrist at their level and the time was readable for the both of them. "Guys, we missed the scan from last time." He alerted the two girls quietly, still making his way over to them. 

Shinoa didn't need him to come closer, she could have already predicted what time it was when the battle ended. It was a gut feeling. "In that case," she started, beginning to turn around to leave these two blondes behind. Mikaela and Mitsuba awaited patiently for her next orders. 

"Why don't we try heading off towards one of the powerhouse teams?"   
~~~~~~~  
A little bit further away from all powerhouse teams, a small player abruptly stopped walking at the small ticks of their wrist watch. 

Her comrades, that were walking in front of her, had noticed that she stopped.   
"What's the matter, Krullie?" voiced out the deranged silver haired demon with an almost too friendly smile. Of course, he'd be the one commenting about such things 

The pink haired player looked down on her wrist watch prior to raising her head to spot six eyes looking down on her. "Well, what's the matter?" The smaller player, the one wearing a top hat, prompted impatiently. No more games, when something was wrong, they needed to tell each other. 

She pulled her hand back, hiding her wrist watch from their eyes and instead pulled out their team's respective terminal scan.   
Her crimson red eyes glanced down at the map unfolding before her very eyes and with an alarming beep, 

"It's 6:00PM, scan is starting. Gather everyone."   
~~~~~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Oh goodness, now I know it took me quite some time to finish writing this chapter but I was mainly too caught up in other fandoms. Though luckily, the protagonists of this story would be getting a complete chapter solely dedicated to them on the next one! I gotta think about a clever gun fight for KFLC....I'll catch you all in the next one. Cya!^^


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